


everything looks better (in hindsight)

by insanetwin



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Time Travel, also there are some Heated moments in this fic so I changed it from mature to explicit just in case, emma is a fool and is confronted with potential obliteration throughout the fic, he is also referenced a few times but never in a positive light, hook has exactly...one moment of dialogue, oof we love to indulge, robin exists but is never seen or heard from which is so sexy, season 1 setting, season 6 emma swan, talking of death and erasure from existence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:12:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 93,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26070184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insanetwin/pseuds/insanetwin
Summary: Emma almost has everything. She's got a wonderful son, a beautiful, tender friend and co-parent, and a family she can count on. It was all she ever dreamed of, once upon a time. At times, she thinks she finally understands what authors mean when they end their story with: they lived happily ever after.But the feeling always leaves her by the morning. Sometimes she thinks her real happy ending has disappeared somewhere in the past, somewhere in between the curses and forgotten memories. And now it is only a possibility lost to her memories.If she could go back...(or in other words, season 6 emma goes back in time and accidentally makes season 1 regina fall in love with her.)
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan
Comments: 281
Kudos: 1362
Collections: 5 stars, Aleatório, SelfInserts OCs Reincarnation and Time Travel, Swan Queen Supernova V: Forever Starstruck





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeesometime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesometime/gifts), [PrincessBread](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessBread/gifts).
  * Inspired by [no title only art [Fanart]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26109391) by [PrincessBread](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessBread/pseuds/PrincessBread). 
  * Inspired by [everything looks better (in hindsight) [Fanart]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25727977) by [coffeesometime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesometime/pseuds/coffeesometime). 



> HELLO, this is my longest story YET and I'm so excited to share it with all of you. This story would not be possible if not for my remarkable friends evie (@spiralofcolors) and lauren (@eddis_). Thank you for reading multiple drafts just to help push me in the right direction. 
> 
> And I also want to thank my wonderful artists evie (FINALLY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS <3) @spiralofcolors and @letitflytoapril, who are both so so SO amazing. Please go check out their art, they are both SO skilled!!
> 
> and finally, thank you sqsupernova mods who continue to make this such a fun and exciting process. we as a fandom are EXTREMELY grateful, and I am ESPECIALLY grateful for the way you've kept our fandom pushing out new stories for my forever pairing. ❤️ 
> 
> also one thing you need to know: the split queen arc is resolved by reemergence, and so when regina goes to the wish verse to find emma, she ends up bringing robin back to stay. they’re not dating, but emma thinks they are, so robin remains otherwise insignificant except for how emma perceives him.

the blue of the sky falls over me

like silk, the flowers burn, and I want

to live my life all over again, to begin again,

to be utterly

wild

“A Meeting” by Mary Oliver

****

Emma can always tell when something strange is about to happen. She likes to say that her tough childhood helped sharpen such intuition in her, but in truth she feels trouble coming the way her mother claims to feel the approach of rain on a clear day. She feels it in her joints.

In the last few years, trouble became such a persistent factor to her life that it hummed in her joints as a low-grade monotone ache that became so constant it tended to disappear into the background like the buzz of telephone wires or a clock. 

But lately, she hasn’t felt anything at all. Everything has gone quiet since Regina reemerged with the Evil Queen, and her visions of death have resolved themselves as well, more or less as peacefully.

Without a villain, the days pass so quietly, quickly, like boxcars on a train. She spends most of her time sitting in her office, reading old texts from Regina, and flipping through her parents obnoxiously sweet Instagram stories, waiting for something to happen. She completes all her responsibilities as Sheriff now and has even subsumed the full role from her father just for something to do in her spare time. She files what needs to be filed, writes all her follow ups, checks the mail about a thousand times a day, and answers all the paltry unremarkable requests: queries over the park-usage, cat-in-tree problems, the Mayor’s survey for possible meeting schedule times.

Something _has_ to come.

Emma sighs and rubs at the back of her neck. It’s a foggy afternoon, but the cloudy light is still warm. It slants in through the blinds in Emma’s office as colorless as tap water and makes her feel warm and sleepy as she tries to finish up her paperwork. It’s only noon, but she wants to finish early, so she can easily reach Regina’s house in time to help prepare for dinner.

She hates to get there any later than five. Any later, and their time together is restricted to just table talk, which always goes by too quick. Sometimes Regina will ask her if she’d like to stay over for a drink but it’s too rare of an invitation to count on.

She’d rather be there early. She’d rather have all the time she can get.

Rubbing her neck absently, Emma tries to refocus on her paperwork. The words keep slipping their own meaning as she reads them, becoming just letters in her mind.

These evenings have become the best part of her week. When she gets there early enough, Regina will let her chop the vegetables or stir the soup, and she can stand there in the warm kitchen space for an hour or so and soak up the warm conversation. It is in these moments that Regina seems completely at ease. Outside of her kitchen, Regina is still warm and present, but it is only in these moments that she seems capable of laughter. She’ll roll up her sleeves and pin up her hair and talk about her day in the soft distracted way she gets while cooking, allowing her thoughts to turn loose and warm as she goes about peeling potatoes or chopping parsley. When she is like this, anything might happen– she might sing songs or tell a horrible joke or laugh in that surprisingly deep belly laugh of hers.

In Regina’s kitchen, everything else seems to fall away. Snow’s new baby. Hook. The existence of fake Robin (though she’s been told to not call him that anymore, despite the fact that this new version is from a _wish-realm_ ) Everything.

In these moments, Emma feels like she’s finally made some kind of life for herself here. She can stand in a warm, bright kitchen and feel like she finally understands what authors mean when they end their story with: _and they lived happily ever after._

But the feeling always leaves her by the morning. She’ll go home to a large, empty house with Hook or creep back (as she’s been doing more and more lately) into her parents’ busy crowded apartment, where her mother and father are swept up into the small universe of their new child’s needs, and the only affection given to her without thought is from a man she feels more burdened with than fond of.

Emma rubs her face tiredly. It’s been weeks. Sitting in her office, avoiding her new large empty house, avoiding her parents and their new baby boy (although really, not so new anymore, though their love is just as shiny), actually _doing_ her paperwork, and waiting for an evening that matters.

Sometimes she thinks she’s just _waiting_ for a villain or curse to arrive. Nothing too dangerous, of course. Just something that’ll break up the days a bit. Or change _something_ so that she can stop looking at the lives of her friends and family like they’ve got something she’s missing.

She shouldn’t be. She has it good. She knows she does.

She’s got a wonderful son, a beautiful, tender friend and co-parent, and a family she can count on. It was all she ever dreamed of, once upon a time.

But sometimes, it feels like she’s lost something, too. She can’t quite place what it is. There just used to be a sense of possibility. Like anything could happen. It used to be there and now it is not. It disappeared somewhere in between the curses and forgotten memories and now it’s something she only remembers from the past. 

If she could go back…

What she’d change, she’s not sure. But she’d make it turn out differently, that’s for sure.

With a sigh, Emma drops her paperwork and slumps heavily back in her seat. She closes her eyes and listens to the sound of the warm air blowing through the heater. 

A strange tingling sensation creeps up the back of Emma’s neck. It is a familiar sensation, but soft and indistinct like television static, and so Emma tiredly rubs it away, the message lost.

She’ll close her eyes for a bit, she thinks. She’ll take a short nap and go to Regina’s a little early. She can finish her work Monday.

Laying her heavy head against the back of the chair, Emma lets herself slowly drift off.

Had anyone been in the station with her, they might have nudged her awake, pointed in amazement at the white magic that poured like a fast-moving mist through the space in the window, and flooded the whole room. Someone might have been able to pull her up and out of the magic’s reach. But the office is quiet, and still. And Emma is tired.

She doesn’t stir even once as it wraps around her and takes her away.

***

When she wakes, it’s to the sound of someone clearing their throat.

She jerks up and nearly falls out of her chair.

“Oh, careful.” Marco catches her elbow with a warm, steadying hand and holds on until she is fully situated on her chair.

“Marco,” Emma squints up at him. A dull ache throbs below an eye socket and doubles the lights behind his head in like an echo. She shakes her head and rubs it away. “Shoot, I’m sorry about that. You weren’t waiting too long, were you?”

“Not at all.” Marco offers a kind smile.

“Good. Great,” Emma grabs a pen to appear more professional, but with no reason to use it she merely puts it down again with a sigh. She folds her hands on her desk. “What can I do for you, Marco?”

Marco blinks at her as if the question is unnecessary and slightly strange.

“Oh,” he smiles, “I only came to see if Leroy needed a lift home again.”

Emma offers only a blank look.

After an awkward pause, Marco elaborates with a soft laugh.

“You know Leroy, most days he needs one. I heard he got into a scuffle last night and figured he must have spent the night here,” Marco shrugs, crinkles his kind eyes. “But I see he’s managed to avoid trouble this time.”

“Oh.” Emma nods slowly. “Okay.”

She can’t recall the last time Leroy was in a drunken rage, but she supposes for such a naturally angry man, it’s never truly all that far away.

A moment passes, slightly awkward, and as Emma tries to recall small talk material, a powerful rush of déjà vu overwhelms her.

It puts heat in her head. She can’t explain it. There is just the sense that this has all happened before.

She thinks, maybe, it has something to do with Marco’s corduroy jacket. It’s the thick, reddish brown one she saw go for eight bucks on a coat rack two years ago in his front yard, along with two old chairs and a box of records. She remembers because she almost got it -- she liked its boxy cut and the sherpa lining and because it seemed to have a weight to it that most of her jackets lack, but Hook was with her and she didn’t have the patience to wait with him in a line he’d have complained in.

But here it is, the color still fully brown and all its buttons still in place.

“Well,” Marco rubs his hands for warmth, preparing for the chill outside. “I should be off.”

“Oh. Alright,” Emma half-rises. “Enjoy your afternoon.”

Marco offers a smile before he closes the door to her office again. She sinks fully back into her chair. The blinds click quietly against the windowpane, and an old sign from Graham’s time rattles against the door handle, alerting that the Sheriff is _IN._

She watches it turn slowly from _IN_ to _Out_ to _IN_ again.

 _Hadn’t she thrown that out?_ She thinks and leans back into her chair.

She glances around her office.

There are just a few things.

In the corner there is a pair of muddied work shoes with their laces untied. Propped against her mug is a dull silver jackknife she’s never used. On the far wall, there’s a picture of a wolf on a snowy landscape, its breath visible as it looks off from the camera point, a picture that Emma recalls taking off the wall and laying it on its side against the wall with all the rest of Graham’s belongings. 

Emma sits there and stares at her office.

Nothing is wrong, not really.

Yet nothing looks right, either. It’s like she stepped into someone else's office, someone who has gone and left her temporarily in charge.

A few minutes pass. When the big hand on the clock reaches the quarter hour, Emma quickly stands and slips on her jacket.

She texts Regina a quick “ _On my way_ ” text, and leaves.

She’s always loved Regina’s neighborhood. Houses there are built like grand ships and stand proudly inside their manicured lawns and orchards with their windows bright from the warmth inside.

By the time she’s pulled up to Regina’s house, she’s comforted again. Everything is still the same here. There are the orchards, and the neat spiral bushes that line the red-brick walkway. The light is on in Henry’s room, and through the bay windows, Emma can see the entrance of Regina’s study where she usually does her work in the evening, the door half-closed. 

With a smile, Emma ambles up the last of the steps and knocks on the door.

A few moments pass, long enough for Emma to check her phone and scuff her shoes against the brick step, but finally, the door swings open.

There, Regina stares fiercely back at her, clearly irritated.

“Miss Swan,” she says, her voice flat. “What are you doing here?”

The air stills.

“Uhm,” Emma offers a tentative smile, “What do you mean?”

Regina’s eyebrows draw together, and as she looks down from Emma’s weather-creased boots to her wind-swept hair, her eyes cool and dry, the intensity of her dislike becomes unmistakable. She looks at Emma as if she were an equally surprising and revolting creature that climbed itself up onto her doorstep and waited there to be found.

“What do you _think_ I mean, Ms. Swan?” Shifting incrementally closer, Regina speaks to her with a softer, more poisonous voice, “ _What_ are _you_ doing at _my_ door?”

Blood buzzes loudly in Emma’s ear. Her heart pounds. She stares at Regina numbly, not understanding.

“I’m uh…” she smiles tremulously “I’m here for dinner?”

Regina lifts an eyebrow, but the rest of her face does not move.

“Really?” Regina asks, at last. She drops her hand from the door and tucks it neatly in the small pocket of her dark grey blazer which seems acutely more business-like than Emma has seen in years. “Why in the world would I invite you for dinner?”

Emma blinks. Her thoughts buzz loudly in her mind. She looks from Regina’s heels to her dark coiffed hair and arrives quickly to a conclusion when she hears the snap of Regina’s fingers.

“Miss Swan,” Regina intones sharply, her expression so removed from any fondness that it sends a chill like ice water through Emma’s heart. “I will not ask again. What are you doing on my doorstep?”

“I—Nothing,” Emma says, and shakes her head. “I guess I got lost.”

“You got lost. In my neighborhood?”

Emma shrugs.

“Well,” Regina smiles unpleasantly , “Now that you’re found, perhaps you can find your way back to your apartment.”

“Right. Alright.” Emma answers softly, numb.

Six years of memories wash over her as Regina narrows her eyes with a cold, empty look that reminds her of how frightening Regina could be. She has the same unpredictable danger as a snake or scorpion — a creature that could decide to strike at any time.

“Make sure you close my gate on your way out,” Regina says, and taps her fingernails against the door with impatience as if Emma were an obnoxious solicitor that wouldn’t go away. “And don’t step on my property again without my invitation.”

“Sure,” Emma says softly, and forces herself to step away. Pain radiates against her ribs, her heart like a balloon ready to burst at the undeniable distance between them, like a gulf separated by thousands of miles. “I’ll uh, I’ll just go then.”

“Please do,” Regina says, and promptly closes the door.

Staring at the white door, a powerful loneliness radiates throughout her body as she listens to the sound of Regina’s heels disappear deeper into the house.

“Fuck,” she mutters.

Fuck

Fuck fuck _fuckfuckfuck_

She should’ve known better than to want anything in this town. She should’ve spent every second of every day being grateful that her whole life didn’t blow up right in front of her, as it seems so willing to do.

Slamming Regina’s gate shut, Emma groans loudly and heads to Regina’s vault.

***

She doesn’t have much luck with Regina’s books, though. Partly because Regina’s books are mystifyingly dense and difficult to understand, but also because the only mention of time travel in them is to briefly debunk its very existence.

Emma slams another heavy book closed and pushes it off her lap. The heavy thud of the book must alert something dangerous behind one of Regina’s cellar walls because a loud rattling sound reverberates directly beside her ear.

Yelping, Emma jolts up onto her feet.

“Fuck.” Emma exhales and takes one big step back from the wall.

It’s still the same wall she leaned against in all her magic lessons with Regina. It contained dangerous creatures then, too but without the safety of Regina’s calm assurances it all seems more daunting somehow. Without Regina present, the vault starts to become more and more like the terrifying hole in the ground that Emma first believed it to be, the air uncomfortably thick with the smell of dusty pages, old magic, and more alarmingly a vaguely metallic smell like pennies but Emma knows it is most likely blood. Faintly, from another room, there is the soft drum of beating hearts.

“Alright, screw this.” Emma puffs, and scurries out of the darkroom.

The light is gone by the time Emma steps out of the vault. Cold faraway stars glimmer between the gaps of trees.

Emma shuffles slowly back to the Bug, not really sure what to do next. It feels dangerous to stay. Any tiny action of hers here could be hugely consequential, like that stupid movie she watched once with Mary Margaret, the one with Ashton Kutcher. Just like that, every second she spends here could add up to some huge reckless change that would ripple across the years and bungle up their future.

She feels so foolish to have wanted anything about her future to change. Now that it is teetering on the edge of disappearing completely, the possibility of its loss is too much to comprehend.

She wants to ask Regina what to do. _Her_ Regina, the one who thinks of her as family, and whose love amounts more than the stars. But even that Regina would probably think this was her fault. Emma can only imagine the quietly pejorative look on her face as she tries to understand how Emma could ever get herself into such a mess.

 _You never think_ , she’d probably sigh. _It’s no wonder your magic is so reckless._ Then she’d probably purse her lips and tell her what to do like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Longing blooms in her heart. Keeping her head down, Emma shuffles quietly to her car and avoids the eyes of any person she may have to offer a smile to or a nod to. Even a friendly smile seems impossible right now.

When Emma opens her car door, there is a quiet, undistinguishable sound like static.

Pausing, Emma waits. Then, from beneath her passenger seat, a familiar reedy voice announces itself.

_Come in Emma. Over._

A well of fondness washes over her. She’d forgotten all about their walkie-talkie messages, all their secret communications.

Squatting down, Emma slides her hand below her chair and fishes out the small black walkie talkie.

A green light flicks on, and her son’s voice returns again. More exasperated than before:

_Emma, come in. Over._

Reaching for the walkie talkie, Emma grips it and brings to her mouth. She thumbs the button.

 _“_ Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

_You have to respond with over, so I know that you’re done talking. Over._

“Go to bed. Over.”

There’s a longer pause, and Emma smiles, imagining the time it takes for her son to roll his eyes. Climbing into her driver’s seat she turns the car on. The small space fills with the sound of the heater and her car’s engine.

The walkie crackles again.

_We have to meet. I have discovered important information on our secret mission. Over._

“Yeah?” she smiles, remembering. “What is it? Did you find out that your neighbor is Baba Yaga? Over.”

 _This is serious Emma,_ Henry sighs. Then after a pause, he says a little fearfully: _You don’t really think she’s Baba Yaga, do you? Over._

Emma laughs. But she won’t spoil it for him.

“Nah, kid,” she reassures. “What’s so important?” There’s a long pause, and Emma heaves a sigh. “ _Over_.”

_I know who Gold is. But we need to make sure. Over._

Oh yeah?” she feels a sinking in her stomach. “How do you plan on doing that?”

This time Henry doesn’t bother correcting her. He’s already wrapped up in his plan:

_We need to break into his shop. If he truly is who I think he is, he’ll have magical stuff in his shop. Some things in there might even help you stop my mom._

For a beat, Emma doesn’t speak. She is struck, reeling, with the reality of her past.

She can’t remember if she’d allowed this the first time. She’d like to think she would have held firm to some sense of motherly authority and refused; that even in her need to connect to Henry, she’d have understood that Henry was only a child acting recklessly and in rebellion against his mother. But in her mind, she can recall several times in which she met with Henry in secret, at her apartment, talking about plans very similar to this.

And even more unimaginable: she’d allowed in all of these conversations for Henry, a child, to imagine a future in which his mother was gone. Defeated, possibly even dead. Inevitably, in his mind, by Emma.

“Oh kid,” Emma says, and rubs her head. “No we’re not going to do that. No.”

_But Emma -!_

“No, Henry,” Emma cuts in firmly, using the motherly voice she had gradually learned from Regina. “You need to go to sleep. It’s a school night, and you have to be up early. And I don’t want to hear another plot like this again, alright? You don’t ever break into anything that isn’t yours.”

There’s a moment of silence. It goes for so long that Emma begins to wonder whether Henry simply turned off his walkie talkie and went to sleep.

But then, the green light flashes again. The air crackles with the opened line of communication.

Henry mumbles. _I’m actually…already at Gold’s._

Emma closes her eyes. “Oh Henry,” she groans and rubs her eyes. “Just…stay where you are, alright? I’m taking you back. Stay where you are.”

It only takes a few minutes to pick Henry up, and so it’s only a quarter past eight by the time she is driving back up the windy roads to Regina’s house again.

“If you take me there, I’m going to get in trouble.” Henry wheedles pathetically in the back.

“Then I guess you’re going to be in trouble.”

After a pause, Emma checks in with the rearview mirror. Henry has sunk himself miserably into the back of his seat, and as they pass between the streetlights, she can see how big and shiny his eyes are in the bars of yellow light that wash over his face.

She tries to ignore it. Street signs go by, and she glances at the familiar yards and fences that line the road. In the back, Henry sits silently, his eyes full of tears.

She sighs.

“Oh, come on,” Emma lets up. “Lighten up, kid. You’ll probably just get a talking to. She might take your comic books away, but I know you have a secret stash at school so it can’t be that bad.”

Henry huffs and crosses his arms. “I don’t care about that.”

“You worried about your video games?”

“No.” His voice is a rough tumble of emotion.

Emma frowns and watches him through the rearview mirror for a while.

“What is it then?”

His shoulders lift with a big shaky breath, and as he lets it out, it seems to completely deflate him.

“I don’t want to go back there with her,” he whispers and in the dim light, Emma can see in his wet dark eyes the fright of a skittish animal.

Her throat spasms. She tightens her grips on the car wheel to keep herself from making audible the soft wounded noise.

She can’t imagine what her old self might have felt in this moment. She cannot empathize with it now, not with her heart wrapped up so painfully in her family, it cannot imagine anything but the pulverizing ache for the two lonely people for whom she would go to any length to protect. She can barely fathom it. How hurt and alienated her family has become to one another.

“She loves you, Henry,” Emma says softly, the memory of Regina’s love washing over her – so enormous, not a single realm could contain it. “She loves you so much, Henry.”

Henry looks at her with blank surprise. It is the look one might give to a stranger who began to act unpredictably.

Tightening her grip on the wheel, Emma sets her eyes resolutely on the yellow reflective markers lining the road and shudders quietly with a sob she keeps silent in her heart. When she checks the rearview mirror again, the look on her face must surprise or embarrass Henry because he quickly looks out the window again. But as she drives, she can see him continuously glance back at her again.

A short while later she pulls up to Regina’s huge house. She lets the car idles for a minute as she waits for Henry to pick up his chin and look at her.

At last, Henry sighs.

“You don’t believe me,” he mutters, and looks sulkily at the boxes of purple flowers that line his mom’s big bay windows. “About the curse.”

Emma rubs her tired forehead. She can’t remember what her old self might have done in this position – she’s long grown out of the old-ways she had of talking herself out of an out-right lie. But if she were to lie now, it would be a completely different lie than it would have been back then. She doesn’t bother. 

‘I do, kid,” she says. “I really do.”

Henry looks at her angrily. “No you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t defend her.”

“Ah, Henry.”

“You don’t know what she’s done!”

“Look, kid. I’m not defending what she’s done. I know she’s done horrible things. But she’s still your mom, kid. It’s not up to you to punish her.”

“But no one else will,” Henry’s big eyes waver, “No one else knows what she’s done.”

“Kid,” Emma exhales. “We’ll stop her, alright? But there’s a town full of people who will very much want to punish her when this curse breaks, and they _will_ do it if given a chance. Who's going to stop _them,_ huh?”

Henry opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He stops, and stares with a furrowed brow out of the window.

“I know you’re angry at your Mom,” Emma says softly. “And I think you have plenty of reasons to be. But think about how scared your Mom must feel with everything falling down around her. Not just the curse, but _you_ , too. She’s scared, Henry.”

He stares determinedly out the window, perhaps trying to ignore her, but she can see the thoughts swimming in his eyes.

Just then, the front door opens.

Regina steps out onto the porch. She stands there silently, her hands hidden into the pockets of her waist coat as she focuses all her attention on the boy in the back seat. She doesn’t look at Emma – she stands with her head slightly stooped as if she were struggling to see Henry through a dense fog, his face probably just barely visible through the car window.

“Go on,” Emma encourages.

Henry seems to register her voice with a slight shock. He jerks up as if from a daydream and looks away from his Mom. With a swift nod, he unbuckles his seatbelt and gathers himself against the cold.

Emma watches him as he makes his way to the front door. He slips in behind his mother, quick as a fish, making sure not to touch her as he goes. Regina silently turns to watch him go, putting a hand against the doorframe as if the absence of her son’s touch were as physically destabilizing as the loss of a limb. She stands there for a moment too long, staring at nothing.

When Regina faces her again, her expression is void of all emotion. Blank, cool, unaffected. She could be a portrait of indifference.

In a thoughtless habit, Emma raises her hand to wave one last goodbye before she leaves, like she always does.

Though it is a gesture that must be as unexpected as it is unwelcome, Regina returns the gesture with a small, silent wave of her own.

Then she turns and closes the door behind her.

It’s only a wave. Likely an empty gesture. And yet it fills Emma’s stomach with butterflies as she drives off again.

She should go back to Regina’s vault. There are shelves of books in that vault, there must be something on time travel. _Just because one book introduces a principal about magic doesn’t necessarily mean it’s absolute,_ Regina used to say, _there’s a thousand contradictions with magic, and all these texts are in conversation with each other to find the rule._ If she stuck with it, inevitably she’d find something about time travel that contradicts the idea that it’s impossible.

Yet as the roads curve inward and out through the trees, she finds that her mind has wandered from the spells and the books and even her thoughts of going home. She finds, instead, that she’s thinking of Regina. She’s thinking of Regina’s face, how she looked beneath the dim porch light, and how she seemed to just stand there looking after Henry left and disappeared up the stairs.

She’s still thinking of Regina by the time she finds the right key to her mother’s apartment, and by the time she walks into the dim, half-lit space the thought of stairs is impossible.

She sinks down into the oatmeal colored couch that she knows will disappear once the curse breaks, though she never discovered why. It was always comfortable. She remembers spending nights on this couch with Mary Margaret, watching old movies that neither one of them enjoyed very much, but always found time to watch just to laugh with one another and share the same popcorn bowl. The cushions are soft, and they sink comfortably when she lays all her weight onto them.

With a deep breath, Emma rests her head back against the arm and closes her eyes.

And even then. Even then, with her eyes closed, there’s Regina.

***

When Emma wakes, it’s to the curious face of her young mother.

With a gasp, Emma jumps up. A muscle twinges painfully along her back and she groans and sinks back onto the couch.

“Ohhh.” she groans.

“Ouch,” Mary Margret winces empathetically. “Rough shift?”

“Yeah,” Emma swipes a hand over her eyes and turns from the fluorescent lights in the kitchen. “You could say that.”

“You know, you didn’t have to sleep on the couch,” Mary Margret says casually, and perches herself on the ottoman near Emma’s feet, “You have a room waiting for you.”

“Yeah,” Emma yawns, and tiredly rubs her face again, “I know.”

Her mother’s apartment glimmers in the morning. The air is full of a dusty light, and all copper pots and pans shimmer where they hang on the wall. There are newspaper clippings on the refrigerator and the calendar across the hall marked full of events for students whose names she will struggle to remember when the curse breaks.

“Anything you want to talk about?” Mary Margret asks, and sips her coffee.

Emma shakes her head and murmurs a quiet _not really_. She expects her mother to bristle and prepare a speech, but Mary Margret simply smiles and shrugs. She is a woman willing to wait, to not always understand.

A soft silence lingers.

Mary Margret sips her coffee and reads the newspaper. Emma drifts in and out of the room with her. Her thumbs are hooked over the lip of her coffee mug and occasionally she taps an absentminded rhythm as she reads.

“Well I should be off,” Mary Margaret says and cradles her cup close to her chest, “Do you have another shift today, or are you free?”

“Oh, I…” Emma squints, tries to remember, then sighs. “Honestly, I don’t have a blasted clue.”

Mary Margret laughs softly. “Well good luck,” She smiles, and stands, gently sliding her fingers through Emma’s long hair as she rounds the couch. “Have a good day.”

The touch tickles Emma’s stomach. “You too,” she manages, and closes her eyes.

She stays there long after the door closes, her heart strung by tenderness.

It’s strange to miss a woman who doesn’t exist. This soft, ridiculous, scattered woman whose first instinct is always to apologize. She’s a ghost now. She slipped away the moment the curse broke. Strange, Emma thinks, to mourn her still, after all these years.

Emma rubs her face and glances at the clock. She watches the hands click slowly along the time increments. There is so much she must do. So much of her life hangs precariously -- she’s got to figure out how to go back.

She’s got to.

Rubbing her face, Emma lies there for a minute more, her mind at last blank from worry.

She doesn’t think about Regina at all. Not at all.

***

Emma arrives first at her work because she figures she must. The computer takes forever to turn on, so she flips through the mail first and listens to the voicemails. She unwraps her scarf from her neck and skims through her paperwork, ferreting through the information that matters and what doesn’t. On the bottom drawer, beneath a few manila folders, she finds the blueprints of Regina’s secret park, and on her coffee mug there are the scribbled notes about Regina’s whereabouts on the day of Graham’s death.

So things are tense, then. There’s nothing to indicate that Mary Margaret has been accused of murder yet, but it must be nearing the time in which Katheryn will mysteriously disappear. And Graham is definitely dead. Probably for a little while now.

Emma cups her hands around her coffee and cradles it close to her chest. She stares out the windows to her office where everything is momentarily calm, picturesque like an office in a magazine.

The lights buzz to themselves. Two big ceiling fans spin quietly above empty chairs. Papers flutter beneath weighted by cups.

As she remembers it, this calm tended not to last very long. Not with a raging angry, lonely Evil Queen on the loose.

And, like clockwork, only a minute or two later, there is the telltale sign of clicking heels. A harbinger to destruction and death.

Tickled, Emma smiles and pours herself a coffee.

The door clatters open, though a little awkwardly since it doesn’t hang on its hinge quite right, so the edge slides noisily against the linoleum as Regina steps inside, her face already dark with contempt.

“Regina,” Emma greets pleasantly. “How nice to see you.”

“I’m sure,” Regina returns coolly with a one-cornered smile, “You certainly look comfortable. Are you planning to do any work today?”

“Well, I just got here.”

“Your shift started an _hour_ ago.”

“Oh…well,” Emma sips her coffee. “I meant to say I got here about an hour ago.”

Regina’s lip curls in a way that almost looks like a smile. As she walks around the desk, approaching Emma slowly, calculatingly, she looks like a woman capable of murder. She looks capable of anything really, and yet as she moves closer to Emma, with the cloudy light illuminating all of her features, she looks to Emma as if she were lit from within with a soft warm light. She glows with pleasure. Her eyes practically shine.

In fact, it almost looks like Regina wants to _pounce_ on her. How could she have forgotten about all of this _tension_?

“You may have charmed all the others, but I see you. I know exactly who you are,” This close, Emma can see that Regina’s eyes turn a different color in the daylight, “You’re not capable of being even _half_ of what my son wants out of you.”

“Yeah,” Smiling, Emma shrugs, “Maybe not.”

Regina’s eyebrows raise into tiny arcs of surprise.

“I doubt I’ll ever get really good with a sword.”

“Funny.”

“The others seem to think so too,” Emma offers a secret smile, their future friendship glowing in her heart. “Maybe I’ll charm you, too.”

Those red lips flatten into a very firm line. This close, Emma can follow the shape of Regina’s lip scar against the edge of her dark red lipstick. Sometimes, when she is angry, her scar looks deeper than it is.

“Ms. Swan,” Regina’s voice sounds velvety even in warning, “One day I will run you out of this town. Perhaps you’ll learn to hold your tongue by then.”

“Yeah, sure. Maybe I will,” Emma laughs in a good-natured way as if they were sharing an inside joke. She smiles. “Anything else? Or did you just come here to visit me?”

Regina does her best not to react, but Emma can see the tight flicker of muscle just below her cheek, tightening her jaw. A furtive pleasure warms Emma’s stomach. She can’t help but love this. While it’s true that she would die to save Regina a hundred times over, she would be lying if she didn’t enjoy messing with her a little bit.

“Enjoy your coffee,” Regina spits out poisonously, and turns to leave.

Emma does just that as she watches with a serene smile as a very angry Evil Queen storms out of the station.

Maybe she can spare some free time. Just a little, to enjoy this.

***

Three days pass. The mornings come, and go, and though Emma tries to focus on a plan to find a way home, there always seems to always be one thing or another that gets in her way. Mary Margaret will ask her to a game of chess, or she’ll set herself on the task of fixing one of the many machines she broke in her mother’s apartment the first time around, and never got around to fixing. It seems she is constantly finding some kind of old monument to her old life. An old apartment key from Boston. A metal wrought ring that will disappear down the sink in a few years. A picture of her and her roommate that will quickly be replaced once the curse breaks to make slight of the curse’s significance on their relationship. Here, in a small brown frame, her younger self looks up at her with a tense smile on her face, struggling to hide the uncomfortable closeness of her roommate’s cheek on her own, but in her heart, Emma knows, there is a painful brightness as it becomes attached again. These things, she now knows, will never quite find their way to her again.

And between all of this, there is Regina. Her presence is like a shadow, either following or approaching by the time of day, but never far away.

It is the same old game they used to play, but now Emma is aware of the hidden terror beneath each one of their skirmishes, which is reason enough to put some distance between them, for fear of provoking Regina into more treacherous waters. But she can’t seem to stop. Whenever Regina enters the room, her heart flutters, knowing that if she pushes Regina in _just_ the right ways, Regina will move in close enough for Emma to smell the mint on her breath and use that dangerously low voice of hers, sometimes right up against Emma’s ear, a voice so deep and rich and sensual that it nearly makes Emma’s knees tremble.

It doesn’t matter what she says anymore. Regina’s insults don’t quite hit the way they used to. Emma simply knows Regina too well – she knows all the nightmares, the type of chamomile tea Regina drinks to go to sleep, the food she craves and the food she hates, the little gestures that lift her mood and the gestures that can destroy it.

Funnily enough, the more unbothered Emma seems, the more _intense_ Regina becomes. Lately, it seems like Regina is almost enjoying this new challenge. She seeks out Emma whenever she can and is never too far away. 

“Ms. Swan.”

“Shit!” Emma jumps, and breathes, “God. I will never understand how you do that.”

“Do _what_?” Regina snaps, clearly already contemptuous over something.

“Move so silently in those heels.”

“Perhaps you should check your hearing. I called your name _twice_ before you heard me.”

Emma raises her eyebrows. “Really? Huh.”

“Yes,” Regina purses her lips, and tries to follow Emma’s gaze into the ocean where she’d been dozing off only a moment before, “What are you doing out here, anyway?”

Emma shrugs and looks out at the sea again where she’d been watching the men fling their nets out into the choppy blue ocean. She’d come out here to think of a plan to get back home, but the smell of sun-warmed creosote and cold mussels lulled her mind, made her forgetful. All her memories of her life in Storybrooke, both past and future, were touched by the smell of salt and sulfur and drying kelp.

And with memories of salt, there are memories of Regina. The fights they’d have on the docks on salt-worn benches, the frigid stand-offs, the conversations. The complaints shared over a bottle of root beer. That time they all went to the beach for a picnic and sat on a blanket near the water, shivering as they huddled close to each other, laughing through their chattering teeth.

She glances over at Regina, who cannot begin to imagine the memories they will share with one another, all the ways in which they will matter to one another.

“Just thinking,” She smiles. “What can I do for you, Madam Mayor?”

“You can do your job,” Regina turns to Emma with an air of coldness more unsettling than the large blue-green waves that now rush the sides of fishermen’s boats, “I shouldn’t have to search the town to see why my town’s Sheriff is not available to pick up the phone.”

“You searched the town for me?”

Regina bristles. “You should be at your desk, Ms. Swan. If you cannot do your job, you will not have a job, do you understand me, Ms. Swan?”

“Oh, loud and clear.”

A silence passes. When Emma looks over, she is surprised to find Regina watching her silently, as still as marble. Against the cloudy white sky the intensity of her dark eyes seems all the more dangerous. For years, Emma has watched those dark eyes pierce through the heart-flesh of her enemies, watched even the most menacing of creatures turn nervous beneath the stony gaze of the Evil Queen, yet no matter how fearsome her anger had seemed at the moment, whenever Regina turned to Emma again those eyes were always soft and warm, benevolent again.

But here, in the cold light, there is nothing so calm or benevolent in those eyes.

“You seem to have the impression that I am more bark than bite, Ms. Swan,” Regina’s lips pull away from her teeth in an almost-smile, “I will warn you; you won’t enjoy being on my bad-side.”

“What, you’ll bite me?”

This time Regina’s sneer looks suspiciously close to a smile. Wrapping her fingers around the thin wooden pier rail, Regina leans ever closer to Emma so that that soft dangerous voice of hers will be heard above the droning sound of the water and wind and the shouts of the men.

“You really have no idea what I am capable of.”

This close, Emma can track down all the small human signs in Regina: the small dimple that unintentionally softens her sneer, the smudge of eyeliner along the corner of her eye, the cedar-like scent of her perfume, strong like juniper.

These little details warm Emma's heart, makes her lean in with a soft smiling whisper of her own, “You’re making me awfully curious to find out, your Majesty.”

Regina blinks once and rearranges her face into one of cool contempt, but in that one moment of stillness, something wild and _intense_ had flashed across those dark shiny eyes. Something incredibly close to hunger.

“Least you forget, Ms. Swan, you staying here is still completely dependent on my allowing you to stay,” Regina steps closer, but the steely look in her eyes does not quite cover the waver in her voice, “Should you continue to be so incompetent in your job, you’ll be out of my town in a heartbeat. Believe that.”

Before Emma can respond, Regina turns and cuts briskly into the chilly wind toward where her car is parked sullenly at the end of the pier.

Leaning gently on her elbow, Emma watches her go. Over the last six years, she believed she had observed Regina in every mood imaginable – furious, miserable, optimistic, grumpy, shy, hopeless. Yet when Regina reaches the car, she briefly looks back at Emma with an expression that eludes any singular, decipherable emotion. In those black eyes ticks a whole world of unknowable thoughts.

 _Is she angry_? Emma wonders, and watches as Regina ducks into her car, and shuts the door firmly behind her. Her heart beats a little too quickly. _Or is this something else. Something new._

***

Though Granny’s diner is normally a calm, overheated space, the waiting area is chilly, regularly interrupted by the bell of an opening door, cooling the space with the smell of rain.

Emma checks her watch impatiently and blows a short breath out her nose. “We’re cutting it real close, kid. I can’t get you home late again.”

Henry shrugs, unconcerned. “I’m always late.”

“Yeah,” Emma rubs her eyes wearily. “I know.”

A waitress passes by with plates on her arms. Unconsciously Emma straightens to be noticed, but the waitress merely directs a brief remorseful smile at her before she turns the corner.

“Ah, shoot,” Emma glances at her watch again. “Your Mom is really going to come for me.”

“She won’t notice.” Henry sighs, his little voice floating with heartache, “She’ll probably be busy with work.”

Her heart twinges in motherly sympathy, but then the clocktower booms, announcing the hour, and apprehension buoys her again.

“Yeah, right,” Emma mumbles, “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

A few minutes later, she catches Ruby’s eye and gives her the most hapless begging face she can muster, which earns her a roll of the eyes and an unwiped booth in the back.

“Still got it,” she leans into the sun-warmed leather seats, “If only your Mom could be swayed by puppy dog eyes, we’d have it good kid.”

Henry blinks incredulously at her, “Well,” he manages somewhat doubtfully, “There’d still be the curse.”

“Right.” She sighs.

Early evening clouds scuttle across the pale sky, descending sleepily from the mountains and slanting through the trees in strokes of purple and blue, like acrylic paint smeared across a white canvas. The streets are swept clear of people, the streetlights glowing on abandoned asphalt as the townspeople bundle inside their homes, already dampened by the thought of rain.

She taps her thumb idly against the table. It’s a soft, hollow sound, and as it disappears into the other sounds in the diner, she soon forgets that she’s doing it herself. It joins the confusion of other noises in her head, the soft kiss of plates on tables, the scramble of conversation, the dull slap of dishes in water, the jumble of her worried thoughts. There’s so much she needs to figure out.

“Are you alright?”

Blinking, Emma looks back at her kid. Her heart squeezes at the sight of her child’s small worried face. So soft and round.

“Of course, kid,” Emma reaches over to squeeze his small hand, then winces, knowing the affection is off a few years. “Uh, how about you? Anything interesting at school?”

“No,” he frowns with the same downward intensity as his Mother. “We never get to do anything fun.”

“Oh,” she cannot restrain the small smile. “Yeah? What’s your favorite subject again?”

“Science.”

“Yeah, thought so,” she grins. _Nerd_. So much like his mother.

“What?” his frown deepens. “Why are you smiling?”

“Nothing kid,” Emma laughs. “You just scowl like your mother.”

The surprise makes Henry’s small shoulders straighten out like a hanger. His chin snaps up sharply like a soldier called to attention.

“You’re so frustrating,” Henry glares fiercely at his napkin, folded now into a triangle with three neat creases, “I don’t get why you’re suddenly acting like you care about _her_. She’s not your _friend_ , Emma. She’s evil, and she hates you,” his eyes flash up to hers hotly, wet with tears, “I can hear it in her voice whenever she talks about you. She _hates_ you.”

A twinge of pain tightens in her heart. She sighs.

“I know that, kid.”

“Do you? It feels like you’re not taking her seriously, at all.”

“Look, kid,” Emma shifts forward and frowns, struggling to collect herself without the certainty of her family. “I’m not trying to pretend like everything is okay and normal. I know things are bad right now. But…One day, once everything is settled, and we’re not fighting over every little thing …” she rubs the back of her neck, feeling heat on her cheeks. “Well, your Mom and I ought to be friends, shouldn’t we?”

Henry’s face wrinkles. “Emma…”

“Think about it, Henry. We both love you and want to be in your life. We will have to learn how to be a part of each other’s lives, and to take care of each other. Like families do,” Emma hesitates for a beat. It feels somewhat dangerous to say all of this, as if she’d just placed all of her chips on a dangerous bet, something not yet believed to be possible. “One day, when the curse breaks, and everything calms down, we’ll have to sort out how our life will look, and I know that no matter what happens, what matters _most_ to both your Mom and me is you. We will _always_ want the same things; you will always be our most important priority.” She nods to herself, and smiles, feeling more assured, “We’ll need each other then. We’ll have to.”

Henry stares at her in blank, open surprise.

A moment or two passes.

And then tentatively, Henry asks. “You _want_ to be my Mom’s friend?”

Feeling a prickling warmth along her neck, Emma overcomes the urge to shrug and act indifferent, as if she has never wanted anything out of her life; an old habit to cope with how few of her needs ever soothed.

“Yeah, I do,” she says instead, and presses down the tips of her fingers to keep from tussling her kid’s hair, knowing her total range of affection at this time consists mainly of awkward shoulder bumps, and to do anything uncharacteristic right now would lose her point, “Eventually, I do. We will still have to break her curse, for sure.”

Henry nods quietly, and after what seems like minutes, his face drawn inward with serious assessment, he nods again, a little more confidently.

“Okay,” he says, and smiles at last, “Yeah. I guess that does make sense.”

“Good.”

“But” Henry folds his hands together like an adult might before a serious talk. “This will mean we have to change a few things, though.”

Her heart skips as two mugs of hot chocolate slap down on the table, bringing the quick, red-painted fingers of a waitress who picks up both of their folded menus.

“Ready to order?” their waitress asks.

“Uh…Sorry, no, we’re not. Could you give us two more minutes please?” Emma smiles ruefully at the obvious resentment in the waitress’s smile, then turns back to her kid. “Sorry, one more time. Why would anything have to change?”

“Well, in my book, it says that the Savior is destined to vanquish the Evil Queen and break her evil curse. I didn’t…I wasn’t quite sure what vanquish would mean, but I figured it was something unpleasant,” Henry’s voice trembles, momentarily weighed by the fears he has kept secret in his tender heart, still, beneath everything, a Momma’s Boy. He clears his throat and heaves his big heavy backpack onto the table, “Now, if we’re planning on you two being friends, we have to figure out a more peaceful way to break the curse.”

“Ah. Right,” Emma folds her knotted fingers into her palms to hide their fidgeting, “Well, alright. I guess there’s no harm in doing that.”

“Here, you’ll need a journal. To brainstorm,” Henry slides out a stack of notebooks with the calm surety of a street merchant fanning out the finest of their stolen goods, “Pick whichever you like. I’ve got more than enough.”

Her heart floats with the tenderness in her chest. Wrinkling her mouth to hide her smile, Emma tenderly reaches out to touch the small black notepad nearest to her son’s elbow, edging the tips of her fingers along the tiny metal spiral.

“Good pick, it’ll make you look like a field detective,” Henry beams, “Do you have a pen? We should brainstorm together first, so you know how to do it on your own.”

With a laugh, she plucks the tiny black pen out of her shirt pocket. 

“Good thinking. I always did need to see it done first.”

“I figured,” her son says kindly, with the patience of a teacher who has just committed to the painstaking task of reviewing the rudimentary once again, “First, whenever you take notes, you want to write the date. On the top corner.” He says, and then patiently waits for her to comply.

“Ah. Okay.” She grimaces and opens the page, “It’s the twelfth, right?”

“The fourteenth.”

“Ah.”

***

In the days following that, Emma falls into the habit of writing down any thoughts that weigh on her mind as if she were a detective on a complex case. She is not sure whether Henry would categorically include anything she’s written within their ‘brain-storming strategies’, since she’s sure thoughts such as _where did Regina’s fancy-grey dress go? It looks so good on her_ and _Regina’s hair looks different this short, I wonder if she started styling it differently_ wouldn’t amount to very much for a ten-year-old’s plan to save the world, but she does make sure to put the date on every entry. It helps track the time passing for her.

Which seems to be passing more quickly. Something of a routine is forming. It is similar to her old life, but …free-er. She’ll go on a morning jog, go to work, find some time to tease Regina, and then go home again. It doesn’t include rushing home to babysit her little brother, evading Hook, or dodging any of the increasingly persistent talks of marriage. It’s just…simpler.

It’s not like she’s putting things off. Not really. It’s just that the curse offers a sort of quiet stability that is never truly returned to Emma’s life once broken. She can sit on the couch with her mother and watch horrible movies and talk about normal things, non-baby, pre-curse-breaking stuff, like work or disappointing TV shows that used to be good or Regina (in a normal, pre-curse-breaking sort of way). She can do things with Henry now that she didn’t know how to do the first time around, being too walled-up, too remote to know how to help him with his homework or push him on a swing or talk him into playing a fun prank on his Mom.

She is not always successful in the last one, but she herself has mastered the art of playfully teasing Regina so in this case, she doesn’t need much help.

The whole week, she put in the center of Regina’s desk a red apple. Once, she covered the black letters that spell out M-A-Y-O-R on Regina’s glass door with a print out of Y-O-U-R M-A-J-E-S-T-Y, and hid in the hallway long enough to see Regina return from her meeting and snatch the paper off with one fierce swipe of her hand before entering her door again. On her days off, she liked to pop into Regina’s office with some kind of minor issue just so she can stand in the bright warm space of Regina’s office and poke her about the curse. 

Never in such a way that would alert a real danger in Regina. She has no interest in dying. But teasing her casually, lightly, in passing.

“Hey, Madame Mayor.”

Aggrieved sigh. “Yes, Ms. Swan?”

“Why does no one come through this town? Or leave it, for that matter. Doesn’t anyone have relatives in different towns that they visit?”

“Ms. Swan, go back to work.”

And so it goes.

She doesn’t do it to be cruel or anything. It’s just that whenever there is any mention of the curse, whether direct or tangential, Regina will look at Emma with a light in her eyes that both looks powerful and dangerous like a small star burning alive. 

“Madame Mayor?”

Another deep sigh. “Yes, Ms. Swan.”

“Did people in the Enchanted Forest have to sit in long meetings like this, or was that left out of the whole matriarchy thing?”

A brief cutting glare, sharper than any knife.

“I’m just curious. I mean, I like democracy, but who knows.”

“Dear, if you need a brain-break, you don’t have to ask me. Go ahead and step outside and get some water if you need it.”

“Thanks, your Majesty.”

One thing about this Regina is that she argues with her about _everything_. In the future, anger is so easily resolved between them. Mostly because the conflicts that arise between them are mostly forgettable issues or forgivable ones, which are always settled conscientiously in a single conversation. But some days, another kind of tension sits between them, one that Regina refuses to talk about or even acknowledge. It’s an unspeakable topic between them. No matter how Emma tries to breach the subject, it is shut down, quickly pacified. _Nothing is wrong, dear, I’m just having an off day._ Or _It’s not you, dear. I’m just in a bad mood_. 

Here, Regina is clear as glass. She will confront Emma about every little annoyance. Every issue is acknowledged.

“Sheriff,” Regina acknowledges her with a brief nod as she enters the meeting room. “I have a very important meeting right after this one, so I’ll need someone to be the time-keeper. Can I trust you to keep your eye on your watch?”

“Madame Mayor,” Emma grins, “You can always trust me to do that.”

At her podium, Regina offers one of those predator-about-to-pounce smiles, full of danger. “I’m glad we could find a use for your very specific talents.”

“Me too. I’m giving you an hour and thirty minutes, to the dot, Madame Mayor. Then I’m cutting you off.”

The meeting room gradually fills. The air warms with people as they yawn and settle in. When the town clock strikes the hour, booming quietly from outside, she gives Regina a quick wink which earns her another terrifying smile.

That day, about half-way into the meeting, Emma makes another entry into her notebook, (Wednesday: October 20nd  ) which is just a doodle of Regina with pointy vampire teeth and hearts for eyes, but she thinks it’s a keeper.

Regina’s soft voice eddies in the room. Outside, the wind presses the rain against the windows. The lights buzz. Somewhere in the distance, the roar of a motorcycle cuts through the air, and fades again like a slow vapor trail beneath the sound of rain.

***

Mornings are beautiful in Storybrook. Emma had almost forgotten how beautiful. On a morning run, it comes back to her steadily. The 6 a. am light on telephone wires. The window-box peonies and geraniums that look nearly incandescent against the ice-blue sky. The square windows she passes that flash with light as quickly as a camera, and then stills again.

She’d forgotten.

Mornings, in her future, were cluttered with reminders to text, to call, to meet up at lunch, and were too often accompanied by a dull throbbing headache from all the whisky the night before. Mornings scraped and nettled at her until she left for work.

Now — the morning spreads out in its simple beauty. There’s no big empty house to avoid, no testy boyfriend she can only sometimes like, no fake-Robin to shadow her best friend.

Briefly, as Emma crosses over Main Street, she thinks she hears a loud voice call out from across the street.

Skittering to a stop and shifting uneasily over a melted patch of asphalt, Emma grimaces and takes out one earbuds. She glances at the street around her. There are the quiet frosty storefronts, their OPEN signs a bright neon against the cool blue glass. A few birds coo quietly, almost sleepily along the telephone wires. A few people are awake at this hour, some walking, and others paused by their cars or house stoops, their faces all familiar ones.

Across the street, too far to see, a man is stopped. His face is scruffy with a beard and his eyes friendly. He raises his hand, and waves, and starts to approach.

Emma grimaces. Small talk – it’s something she never got any better at. It always started benign here – _hello, how are you, how about this weather we’re having, huh?_ And then always somehow found itself picking into the real bones of gossip, _so you went down to Hell for Hook, huh? And the mayor’s boyfriend died? How’d she take it? Was it worth it?_

So, with a guilty smile a quick wave, Emma pops her earphone back into her ear and takes off running again. 

Finding her rhythm again, she pumps her legs a little faster, enjoying the pleasant burn in her muscles. Her lungs burn form the cold, but there’s something pleasant about it, too. Almost cleansing, like clearing out something tired and heavily cluttered. She decides to cut towards the dirt road along the Toll Bridge, adding another two miles, what the hell. She’s got time.

***

The next morning, since she can, Emma spends it on a park bench at the playground, the old one that Regina will one day tear down. 

It really is a sorry sight to see. The wood looks sea-worn and splintery. Nails are rusty and visible. There’s a rusty looking merry-go-round that will disappear from all playgrounds in another few years. There’s a metal slide that looks unnaturally curved at the bottom, as if bent from a car backing into it.

Emma chuckles into another sip of coffee. Sometimes, she really can’t believe the arguments she used to get into with Regina. Their arguments had been cut clean and simple in her memory, like a knight’s battle against a dragon. No one thought on whether the knight had been in the wrong. Now, well. The dragon made some real good points.

Emma glances down at her watch. In another half hour, her shift will start, but Emma is content to wait until the last few minutes.

It is a crisp, autumn day, and she has a warm cup of coffee and one of Granny’s baked apple cinnamon donuts that reminds her vaguely of a distant Christmas memory she doesn’t think is her own. One of those memories you gain from movies or TV shows. Maybe she watched a movie where characters huddled around some freshly baked apple cinnamon treats or warmed their cold noses over hot apple cider and absorbed the moment as a dreamlike memory. However it happened, she has associated warm apple treats with family ever since.

Well. Emma takes another bite, smiling with memory. _Most_ apple treats.

Though Regina has baked more than enough delicious desserts to ever again be associated with _poison_ in Emma’s mind, she also delicately avoids baking Emma any sort of treat with apples in it. Emma would love to reassure her, but she’s not so clumsy as to bring it up. She can imagine how it’d go almost: _Hey Regina. I just wanted to let you know if you ever want to bake me a dessert that has apples in it, I’d happily eat anything you made. I don’t associate poison with you at all anymore._ And then Regina would give her that look she always does when Emma’s being an idiot, and they’d never talk about it again, with or without apple treats.

Better to let it go. Although, at times, she wonders what would happen if she just sat down with Regina like that; maybe she’d start at something stupid like that, and then she could go from there, and talk about everything else, all the things between them that couldn’t be said, could barely even be thought. Then – then, once everything is out there, in the open, even the stupid petty things, even the terrifying things, then… would things be different? 

That’s what Hook wants out of her. Transparency. Or, she supposes, not really that. He wants all that is contingent with transparency. He wants her to loosen up, to be happier, to be more settled, and in order to rope her into those discussions he will softly push for transparency, which could have suggested a certain amount of care for her if what came out between them instead was not an endless urging for her to _let loose_ , to _open up_ , to just _have another drink love_ , to just be _vulnerable_ with him _for once._

She drank with him to ease his mind, to ease his urgings, to ease his annoyance, but in truth she never became any more honest with him. She told him things that were true but that only ever hinted at other things, things that were more important to her, to things that so were knotted in her they were almost impenetrable, to which she kept silent in her heart. Things that made her think, _endlessly,_ of –

“Ms. Swan.”

Emma startles, and looks up. “Madame Mayor,” She grins, “I was just thinking of you.”

Regina makes a line out of her mouth. Scraps of black hair blow across her face and are quickly put back in place again.

“I can’t imagine why,” Regina answers, “Unless some functioning part of your brain remembers that you should be at work and is attempting to save you from an imminent dismissal.”

Emma laughs once, as loud, and singular as a bark.

“No,” she smiles around her coffee, “That’s definitely not it. Anyway,” she looks at her watch, “I still have fifteen minutes.”

“Your drive is about fifteen minutes.”

“ _Your_ drive might be,” Emma scoffs, “I’ve driven in cities for eleven years, I know how to hustle.”

“Must I remind you, Sheriff, that your job is to _enforce_ the laws in this town, not to break them.”

“Shoot. I’ll get the hang of this, eventually.”

Regina sighs with great exasperation. But beneath that, there is a scrap of humor in her voice. Emma would know. She’s trained herself to pick up on even the slightest hint of amusement in Regina’s tone, who has an endlessly extensive range of exhausted noises.

“What are you doing out here, anyway.”

“Just enjoying the morning,” Emma hums, and sends a beams of hope into Regina’s flat even expression. “You’re welcome to sit with me.”

“Please,” she huffs.

Yet, Regina remains standing by the bench with her hands huddled in her coat pockets, giving no indication that she might leave anytime soon.

Emma leans back against the bench and stares out at the water. In the distance, a foghorn bleats across the land. Fishing boats float calmly above water as if mere paintings of boats, unmoved by the endless spray of the wind and water.

“Why are you here?” Emma asks after a while.

Regina’s face draws together. She shuffles, and shrugs, looking away.

For a minute, there is only silence. Emma huddles the cup of coffee closer to her chest as she watches a flock of white birds float across the sky. The water swells a little higher than normal, spraying across the docks and dampening the men in blue raincoats, their backs hunched beside their large coolers full of fish.

“Henry left for school earlier than usual,” Regina answers at last, in a faraway tone, “I thought perhaps he’d be here with you.”

“Oh,” Emma says.

She looks up in time to see the loneliness crest on Regina’s forehead and crumble down into her eyes. Though Henry hasn’t been here, she suspects that the walkie talkie in the floor of her car has probably been speaking to the empty air for the last half hour. Her heart twinges painfully, and her fingers clench around her coffee cup to keep herself from reaching out towards Regina. Her co-parent and closest confidant. Her partner, in magic, in parenting, in everything.

“Well, I haven’t seen him this morning,” Emma says instead, as casually as she can. “I’m sure the kid just has a project at school he needs to work on.”

Regina nods tightly and folds her arms over her chest.

As the silence falls again, Emma shifts. She thinks quickly of something she can offer, a kind of warmth or comfort. But everything that works for _her_ Regina (affection, mostly, because Regina loves a hug) would be quickly sniped down.

At last, she scrapes up a rough laugh, “It’ll be relief when this thing gets knocked down, right?”

Regina looks at her sharply. “How do you know about that?”

Emma sighs. _Fuck_.

“Oh, you know. Anonymous source,” When she looks up, Regina is still staring pointedly down at her, her eyes pools of black ice. She sighs again, “I saw your blue-prints for the new playground on your desk. It looks like a good investment.”

“It was _supposed_ to be a surprise,” Regina cants her mouth downward, a touch of malevolence in her tone, “I’m surprised you approve.”

Emma shrugs. She looks at the old hazardous playground, now unbalanced and misshapen.

“It’s not a safe place to play.” Emma thumbs her cold, numb ear, and shrugs, glancing up at Regina, “You used to take him here all the time, right?”

Regina shifts in the cold. Her face wavers like a pool of water.

“Yes,” she says, at last, “All the time.”

Emma nods, “He has good memories of this place. I’m sure it’ll be hard for him to let go at first, but if you tell him why, I’m sure he’ll understand. He’ll find new things to love about this new playground.”

There will be endless memories. Days standing in the chilly air, standing shoulder to shoulder Regina, complaining about the cold but happy to be there, happy to be standing in front of the new park watching Henry play. Memories of childhood that mothers like her and Regina are only too happy to observe, grateful for the chance; first with Henry, and then with baby Neal, and then with Zelena and her little Rose. Maybe they will stand there sometime in the future with their grandkids, should they be so lucky.

With a grin, Emma looks up to find Regina already watching her. Her eyes are dark and keen.

“You’re being surprisingly insightful today, Ms. Swan.” Regina says at last.

Emma shrugs. “I have my moments.”

“You have _this_ moment,” Regina’s eyes crinkle playfully. “We’ll keep it singular for now.”

A warmth blooms in Emma’s chest, bringing with it the countless moments to come between her and Regina, all the small parental decisions she helped Regina through, all the fears and insecurities and indecision that crop up in their raising of Henry.

“For now,” Emma agrees and finishes her coffee, smiling.

***

On Friday, there’s a post-it note on her computer monitor. She doesn’t see it until after she’s flicked on the coffee, but as she’s rounding the counter, she notices the bright tacky note on her screen, and on it a scrawl of slanting, incomprehensible cursive which neither Regina nor Henry could have possibly written.

She peels the post-it notes off and turns on her computer, reviewing the note as her monitor hums quietly. Up close, some of the letters begin to make a familiar pattern. She can pick out the word _Are_ and _attention._

With a shrug, she shoves the post-it in her jacket, suspecting, like most things in this town, it will reveal itself.

A moment later, she’s thinking of other things, like coffee and the huge stack of paperwork her past-self had a habit of leaving undone, and then to wonder why all the sugar packs weren’t organized from _Raw Sugar_ to sweetener they usually were, and why the compartments with all the creamers and plastic cups were empty. Then she remembers that it was always her father who kept the small compartments stocked and organized for when days got long.

When the phone rings, Emma plucks it out of its receiver and edges it between her ear and shoulder.

“Sheriff, here.” she answers.

A voice cuts through the static, booming loud and clear in her ear. “Hey, Emma. How are you doing?”

“Oh. Alright.” she says and waits through the three-beats of awkward silence, unable to think of a more thoughtful response. She never did get any better with the small talk.

“Oh, well. Right,” the man clears his throat roughly, “Sorry to take your time, Sheriff. But there’s been a theft here. I was hoping you could come by the convenience store to check things out. It shouldn’t be long.”

The moment she walks up to the curb in front of the store, she remembers what memory she is in. Through the windows, a sign reads FRESH FOOD CHOICES in white against the far-right wall. A rotating display of shiny new comic books stands beside the open doors.

It was originally only an attempt at theft, as she recalled. Ava and Nicholas had tried to run with a backpack full of sandwiches, chips, and a few candy bars, attempting to avert blame with Henry as a baffled, unknowing accomplice.

But as she enters the store, she doesn’t find any kids, guilty or not. The floor looks recently swept, though there are faint smudges left by wet dirty rain boots. The first time this happened, she had walked in to see a guilt-struck Henry tucked beneath the arm of his fiercely protective mother, and two strange kids with hard-eyes and hollow cheeks.

Now, though, the store is clear, empty. In the back, the section for chips is scarce, and there’s a noticeable number of packaged sandwiches missing.

“Sheriff,” a man approaches her, smiling. He is a gruff-looking man, bearded, with big hands and a square jaw, and though he looks vaguely familiar the name slips her mind completely. In her old life, he was a man she saw frequently in passing, a friend of Snow’s, but she can hardly muster being anything more than a peripheral acquaintance to the people outside her family.

“Hey, uh,” she squints at his name tag, “Brett,” she shakes his hand firmly enough to avoid any possibility of small talk, “So, did you get a chance to look at the suspects?”

With a grunt, Brett folds his arms in front of his chest, “No, unfortunately,” he nods his chin to the back door, “I turned around for a second to grab something from the back, and I heard a scatter of quick feet. By the time I came back someone had taken off with a load of sandwiches. Some chips, too.”

“Alright,” she nods, and pulls the mini notepad that Henry gave her out of her back pocket. Technically, this is brainstorming, “So, uh, were you aware of anyone in the store when you turned around?”

The man shrugs. “I didn’t see them. They must have slipped in real quiet. Like I said, I had my back turned when they took off.”

“Right,” she anxiously clicks the pen, “Is this something that happens frequently, would you say?”

The man blinks. Beneath the artificial light, his eyes going blank. “Frequently? No. I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know if you’ve been stolen from before?”

He blinks again, slower this time. His brown eyes swim with a different life. “Here? I don’t think so. I can’t recall.”

Ah, right.

Clearing her throat, Emma draws his attention back to the present, waits another beat for him to blink, “Was my kid in here earlier?”

“Henry?” Brett’s dark, sparse eyebrows wrinkle. “No, I haven’t seen him today. Why?”

“No reason,” she answers, and jots down Henry wasn’t involved beneath the place where she’d written _Notes._

Maybe it was just a different day. Maybe nothing has really changed. It’s possible. These kids have been drifters for twenty-eight years, they would have stolen from this little convenience store at least a hundred other times. Maybe she just missed inspecting this thieving incidence the first time, being likely busy with Henry or some plot against Regina. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be today. Her son would have been here.

It’ll just happen later, she thinks. Nothing has changed that much. She’s hardly done anything, yet. 

With a deep, calming breath, she clicks her pen again, “What’s the date?” she asks.

“Uh, October 22nd”

“Right.” She scribbles down _October 22 nd _in the corner _._

_Notes_

  * _Henry wasn’t involved_
  * _Potentially different day_
  * _Suspects: possibly Ava and Nicholas though they were not caught._



“Great,” she clicks her pen a final time, and shoves her notepad into her jacket pocket. “Thanks for the call. I’ll be in contact to see if we find anything else.”

“Great, thanks, Sheriff,” As she turns around, she feels the pressure of Brett’s large warm fingers on her elbow, “Oh hey, you dropped something.”

“Hm?” Half-turning, she spots the yellow post-it notes in the man’s hand, and shrugs. “Oh yeah, that was left for me. Probably a reminder for me to turn in paperwork or something. I can’t read it, though.”

Brett’s eyebrows pinch together. “Looks like a question.”

“Oh yeah?” she turns fully around, “What does it say?”

“Uh,” Brett makes a hacking _harrumph_ sound in his throat, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Well, I don’t know the context really.”

“Just read it.”

“Are you paying attention?”

She blinks. The lights slide momentarily out of focus, then brighten again, sporadic as a heart monitor.

“What?” she musters a half-laugh.

“That’s what it says,” Brett shrugs, and extends the note towards her again. Under the brighter light, the letters sharpen with a new clarity.

There, against bright yellow -- _Are you paying attention?_

Brett shrugs. “Maybe it’s the Mayor?”

“Right. Maybe.” But it’s not her handwriting.

“Well, anyway. Thanks for the help,” Brett extends his hand again. His hand is fleshy, but smaller than she’d expected upon closing her fingers around it again. “You know, just between us, I think you’re doing a good thing, staying here, looking after that kid.”

He squeezes her hand again, soft enough for the gesture to feel like an act of complicity, as if she were silently agreeing to conspire against a common foe. When she looks up into his eyes, she sees mirth twinkling there.

“Somebody’s got to watch out for that kid. That woman can be vicious.”

She crinkles her mouth, and immediately drops his hand. “She’s a good Mom.”

“Huh?”

“Regina. She’s a good Mom,” she repeats more firmly, her voice hard-enough to make the man squint at her, “I’m here to make things right, not to get in between them.”

“Sure. Of course,” Brett answers amicably enough, but when he steps back, his expression does not seem as friendly as before. A wall has fallen between them. A new tension rests in his arms, and in the curve of his shoulders. His mouth wrinkles slightly as if he were sucking the back of his teeth.

Perhaps because her own lips have curled against her teeth.

“Take care, Sheriff.” He says at last, voice gruff.

“You too,” she answers just as gruffly.

***

“You hungry?”

Regina looks up from her desk with a jump, blinks at her twice with a startled expression.

“What?” Regina asks, astonished.

Emma extends a small paper bag in front of her. “I grabbed you a muffin.”

“A muffin?” Regina repeats slowly, cautiously, as if it were consonants of another language she had never spoken before.

“Yeah, Granny had those lemon cranberry muffins you like,” Emma shakes the bag enticingly. “ _And_ they’re freshly baked.”

Regina merely looks from the bag to Emma’s face with an expression so absent of understanding that it seems possible that the words she spoke came out completely unintelligibly. 

Then, at last, Regina asks: “How could you possibly know I liked those muffins?”

Oh, right.

“Uhm. A guess?”

Regina gives Emma a critical once over before poking the bag tentatively with the tip of her pen as if the pastry might contain dangerous chemicals.

“You really think I’d poison you with a lemon cranberry muffin?”

“Well, I’m not ruling it out.”

“You know. Most people don’t spend all their time scheming, your Majesty.”

At the pet name, Regina’s mouth flattens into a thin line. She glances up at Emma in a way must be unintentional because once meeting Emma’s eyes she very quickly returns her attention to the paperwork on her desk.

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust the woman who claims I’m evil and wants to steal my son away from me.”

“Well, maybe don’t trust her,” Emma laughs. “But everyone else.”

“Ms. Swan,” Regina’s lips twitch with the slightest amusement. “Honestly. What are you doing?”

“What’s wrong with wanting a little company?”

“Considering the company, I find it strange.”

“Oh, you’re not that bad,” Emma sinks easily into the chair opposite of Regina, already tearing the corner of a steaming bear claw, “If you want me to taste yours, for safety reasons, I will gladly do so.”

A beat of silence passes.

When Emma looks up again, she finds the full force of Regina’s attention. Those dark eyes still hold a dangerous magnetic quality over Emma — capable of drawing the most hidden, coveted secrets to the surface of the mind. Staring into them now, Emma feels a stirring in her heart, quick and nervous like the off-key chimes of the wind.

Stiffening, Emma holds steady.

A full minute passes, or perhaps it only feels like a minute. It may have only been seconds, but under such scrutiny, time runs differently.

At last, without any warning, Regina plucks the small bag from her desk and returns her back to her chair.

“Very well,” With a rare, closed-mouth smile on her face, Regina sneaks two curious fingers into her pastry bag, “Although, if I fall over and die soon after biting into this, you’ll be a very convincing suspect in my murder case.”

“Yeah,” Emma laughs, her lungs shakily expanding again, “That would be very suspicious. I’d definitely have to investigate it as a lead.”

Regina laughs surprisingly loud and pops another piece of muffin into her mouth. Her eyes close and the corner of her mouth pulls up with her secret pleasure.

Watching her, Emma relaxes. There, hidden in these small moments, is _her_ Regina. Her caring, beautiful friend who gentles all of her insults with soft, affectionate laughter, who loves to read all of their son’s nerdy comics and drinks coffee with so much sugar it makes Emma’s teeth ring.

Regina glances up as she tears another piece of the muffin from the corner and spots Emma’s attention.

Emma quickly looks down at her own pastry again, but not before she sees the curious lift of Regina’s eyebrow. She clears her throat and doesn’t dare look up at Regina again.

Still, it’s peaceful. Slow traffic sounds through the half-open window. From where she sits, she can see all the tall aspen trees that box in each neighborhood, their leaves such a vibrant yellow they look almost made of matchsticks. In the distance, she can see two big yellow busses waiting in a long line at a stop light, their blue exhaust tumbling out into the chilly air.

It could almost be any normal afternoon. She could have just finished a late lunch with Regina and decided to wait to walk with her to pick Henry up from school. Together, like they always do.

Softening her back against her chair, Emma closes her eyes, feeling warm and forgetful in the quiet, overheated space.

A phone from the secretaries’ desk outside rings, and rouses Emma again.

When she looks up, she finds Regina now long finished with her pastry. She is watching Emma silently, her eyes dark and full of an intensity that is impossible to decipher.

Immediately, startled, Emma rises to go.

“I should go.” She says, more to herself than anything.

Regina merely hums, and nods. She watches Emma silently as she packs up her things, and pats down her pockets to check and re-check the location of her phone and keys.

“Okay, well…thanks,” Emma finishes weakly, and turns for the door.

There is no reply, and as she walks the long, silent way to the door, a sharp prickling heat sits on the back of her neck.

What was she thinking? Being nice to this version of Regina is dangerous. This Regina is always scheming, always silently, plotting, thinking of new ways to get rid of Emma.

And yet, beneath all that…there is an odd thrill of excitement. Her blood thrums in her ears.

Out in the cool air, Emma slows. Regina’s expression stays on her mind – those dark eyes, the slight upward tick of her eyebrows, the slight curve of her mouth that has only ever meant something dangerous.

It has been years since she felt this kind of exhilaration between her and Regina. They had become so comfortable with their lives, with each other, that there was no longer anything that could be risked, or lost, or provoked. Now, just the thought of Regina runs an excitement like electricity from her heart to the tiny minute nerves that electrify her whole body. A kind of excitement she hasn’t felt in years. That old sense of possibility. That anything could happen.

Anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed. <3


	2. part two

Another week passes. She doesn’t get much further in her plan back home, but she does successfully convince Mary Margaret to ask out her husband again for a cup of coffee to clear out some intensely bottled-up feelings. Beyond that, everything has remained the same.

“Getting the Mayor’s coffee again, Sheriff?”

Emma straightens, and squints through the cloudy light at Ruby’s warm, unassuming expression that slips away only slightly around the curve of her smile.

“So, maybe I am,” Emma narrows her eyes, “What of it?”

“Nothing. I think it’s sweet.”

“Mhm.”

So maybe she started to buy Regina coffee, too. It’s not like it happens all the time. It’s Thursday, and she’d brought Regina coffee two other times this week, and sometimes a freshly baked treat as well if it still looks warm. Then she’d swing by Regina’s office to drop it off. Sometimes she will sit in her quiet office to drink it with her.

It’s not like they’re friends or anything. Regina still curls her lip whenever Emma comes by, but she will allow Emma to sit in the small leather chair beside her desk and ask her about her day as they finish their coffee together.

Outside, the rain makes rivers out of the gutters. Windows tremble as Emma waits. The fog is so thick, beyond the stone cowls of nearby houses and the tops of trees, everything else has disappeared as if submerged by a, steel-grey ocean. It’s one of those days that makes one never want to leave bed.

Still, when Ruby plops down two cups of coffee, Emma still makes her way through the bitter wind and rain to the Mayor’s office.

Regina is on the phone when she enters. Though she is facing the window, she must know that it’s Emma at her door because she points to the seat Emma normally takes in a wordless command. As she puts Regina’s coffee on her desk, her heart flutters at the way Regina looks pointedly at the chair to make sure Emma follows her directions and sits down. When she does, Regina looks away again. 

A few coffees. How much can that change?

***

“Ms. Swan, can you pick up something for me to eat later today? I must have left my lunch in the fridge this morning.”

“Sure thing, Madame Mayor. Anything specific you want?”

“I’ll let you fare that out for yourself.”

Twenty minutes later, she finds Regina on one of the cushioned chairs that are in the rooms usually allotted for City council meetings. Her heels are off, and her eyes are closed.

She looks exhausted. Emma’s not sure how she missed it the first time: how tired Regina is. Maybe Regina hid it better. Maybe Emma just never wanted to see it. But now, it seems obvious. Stress sits in the creases around her mouth, the lines around her eyes, in every small restlessness moment. It looks as if she hasn’t slept in weeks.

And Regina sleeps so lightly; the slightest sound could wake her up.

Delicately, Emma closes the blinds on the window, spinning the dial slowly until the room darkens into a quieter grey. Rain and wind continue to batter the trees outside, but here in the conference room the walls are thick enough to muffle everything but the thunder, which is faint enough to confuse as the rumblings of clouds moving across the sky. She leaves the kale salad and root beer on the table and closes the door gently behind her.

“When is the Mayor’s next meeting?”

“In two hours. Why?”

“No reason. Thanks.”

An hour later, she gets a text: _I’ll take it as merely a guess that you knew I liked Granny’s kale salad and root beer._

She smiles, and texts back _: A lucky guess._

***

“Madame Mayor, you’re looking lovely today.”

“Sheriff,” Regina acknowledges with the same dry tone she’s come to use with Emma’s unsolicited visits, not once looking up from her binder, “Do you need something or are you just here to derail me from my responsibilities.”

“Madame Mayor, I’m always trying to derail you.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed,” Regina retorts acridly, “Do you have no other work to occupy your mind?”

“Nope,” Emma looks around for a sideboard to put down the bakery bag pocketed in her arm, juggling two coffees, “I mean, aside from wooing your affection, I spend my days just chipping away at your curse.”

Emma doesn’t need to see Regina’s face to know her joke landed badly. There is something palpable about Regina’s anger. It sucks the air out of the room.

“You may think that you are being cunning, Ms. Swan,” Regina snaps, and sets down her pen. ”But I can tell you that with every interaction I have with you I am provided only with more compelling reasons for why you are a bad influence to my son.”

When Emma looks towards Regina, she finds in her furious face an echo of something else, right behind the anger — a fear as steady and dark as a shadow.

“Oh yeah?” Emma smiles tentatively warmer, “What was your most recent find?”

One slow blink later, and all the small muscles in Regina’s expression finds their coldest default.

“You’re intrusive. And bothersome,” Regina says simply, and looks to her work, clearly finished with their argument.

Emma whistles lowly.

“Shoot,” Emma puts down Regina’s coffee on the side table, “You’re right. That is pretty damning.”

“And that’s only from the top of my head,” she gripes irritably..

“Right,” Emma chuckles, “Well, I think I can work on that first one. If you want, I can stop barging into your office every day. Just let me know.”

Regina shuffles her papers. She adds snappily, “I’ll consider it.”

Yet, as Emma sits down on the small black conch, she spots a swivel of movement in the mirror on the wall. By the time she looks over, Regina has turned her direction back to her papers as smoothly as if she never looked up at all.

***

On a drizzly afternoon, as Emma patrols the slumbering streets, she notices Regina’s black Mercedes pulled off on the side. It takes up two parking spots and seems sunken, uneven.

Emma slows, and parks her car right behind her. Stepping out, she leans her arm against the car door as she watches Regina glare at a very flat tire.

“Hey,” she calls, and smiles when Regina’s startles, “Having troubles with your car?”

Regina barely glances at her. “It’s none of your concern, Sheriff.”

“Well. I can check in with the stables to see if they still have a carriage for you.”

Regina looks at her with an expression of intense loathing.

“A joke, obviously,” Emma nods to herself. “We both know you don’t need a carriage. I’m sure with a snap of your fingers, you could go anywhere.”

“You never seem to run out of these Evil Queen jokes,” Regina slaps her gloves onto the top of her car with a sigh, and takes out her phone, likely to look for a lifeboat of some kind. “I wonder what has to happen to the brain to make a thirty-something woman act like a ten-year-old.”

Emma guffaws. “All the unresolved childhood trauma, I’m sure.”

Regina offers a flat hum in acknowledgement and doesn’t look up from her phone.

In the windy silence, Emma stuffs her hands into her pockets and shrugs. It’s really no fun to poke at Regina when she doesn’t bite back.

“Do you need help?” Emma asks tentatively.

“No.”

“Alright,” Emma shrugs. “But you know, it’s noon. Tillman is probably out for lunch. You may have to wait an hour or more before anyone gets here, and I got a spare in my trunk.”

Regina glances up irritably. “I’d really rather wait for someone competent, thank you.”

Emma squints at her. “It’s a flat tire. You really think you need to be a _mechanic_ to change a tire?”

The slightest color of pink colors the tops of Regina’s cheeks, and floods Emma’s chest with warmth.

“Come on. Let me do it,” Emma bugs, suddenly full of fondness. “I’d be happy to do it for you.”

Something in Emma’s voice must change Regina’s mind because when she looks up at Emma again, the cold dislike is gone. She looks at her instead with an expression that might have been blank if not for the slightly curious look in her eyes. She stares at Emma a moment longer before nodding and looking away again.

Fifteen minutes later, Emma is screwing on the final bolts into Regina’s hubcap.

“There, all finished.”

“So, that’s it?” Regina peers at the tire, as if she cannot believe it is really so simple.

“Yep. Any fool can do it.”

Regina’s dark eyes slide up and down her body in acknowledgement.

“Well, that’s good to know,” Then, as if it pains her, she sighs. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Emma grins. “I’m happy to do it.”

She looks up to see if Regina’s eyes are warm, but the late autumn light is bright and reflective against the glass windows, making it hard to see. By the time she shields her eyes, it is too late to see if there is any real emotion in Regina’s eyes behind her usual blank watchful expression. Her eyes are squinted but it is hard to tell if it is from a smile or simply the cold light.

Clearing her throat, Emma drops her eyes and taps the new tire gently with her wrench. “Let me know if you start having trouble with this one. Sometimes spare tires get flat when they’re just in your car waiting to be used.”

“Right,” Regina says, her voice dry, drawling. “You’ll be the first person I call.”

Emma glances up in surprise, unable to stop herself from showing her hurt. Somehow, in the last few days, she had allowed herself to forget that before the curse breaks, the only thing Regina could possibly feel for her is hatred.

“Right,” Emma blinks, slowly. “Well. I’ll let you go.”

But before Emma stands, Regina steps closer, coming to stand right above her so that her shadow covers Emma’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Regina says, “You helped me when you didn’t have to. I appreciate your help.”

“Oh,” she shrugs, looking down. “It’s fine. I was happy to do it.”

“No,” Regina determines, “You did me a favor, and I should be grateful. Let me repay you.”

“Oh, no that’s not -.”

“With dinner, I mean.”

Emma blinks. She looks up.

“Really?” Emma asks.

An old longing inside of her is sharpens painfully and wedges itself between the ribs. She can’t help it — she has always so badly wanted to be an important part of Regina’s life, to be so integral she could be asked to stay more than once a week.

Regina smiles at her in that soft menacing way, as if she knew about the soft bud of hope in Emma’s chest and found it amusing. 

“Yes. Come for dinner tonight. I would like to thank you for helping me.”

“I…It’s just a tire,” Emma stands up again, wanting to feel on the same level with Regina in some aspect of their life. “I mean, thank you. I appreciate the offer, but you don’t have to do anything like that.”

Regina nods and appraises Emma briefly once more as if she were in an auction of antiques, deliberating whether or not to buy the lamp going for half its original price, old but nearly decent enough to go with her decor. After a beat, Regina nods, and looks back at Emma in a way that makes all the blood rush to her head.

“Be there by seven.” Regina says softly, her voice lush with pleasure.

Emma can only watch as Regina slips into the cushioned hush of her car. The sleek grey windows roll all the way up and Emma watches her until her car disappears around the corner.

***

A large chunk of the last few hours is spent agonizing over whether she should actually show. She can think of about a hundred reasons why she should not, including the very real possibility of being murdered, and not a lot of convincing reasons why she should.

Yet by the time five o clock rolls around Emma finds herself automatically preparing herself for one of Regina’s dinners, as humdrum as preparing for sleep, her muscle memory carrying her through the process. She plugs in the curling iron and drags out the ironing board from Mary Margaret’s closet room, giving it one competent shake so that it stands on its own so that she can dig through her wardrobe. She passes over a few old shirts that she will put in a big give-away bag a few years from now, and at last finds in her drawer the black, mock-neck long sleeve she usually saves for fancy occasions.

An hour and a half later, Emma is shivering in the cool evening air, walking up Regina’s driveway with a bottle of wine tucked beneath one arm and a bouquet of purple bellflowers in the other. The flowers had seemed so beautiful and doomed in the grocery store that it seemed only fitting to bring them.

When the door opens, Emma’s heart whoops pleasantly at the sight of Regina beneath warm gold light. She is in a beautiful sleeveless blue dress that makes her body seem made of water. On her wrist is a silver bracelet Emma’s never seen before, and it makes a tinkling sort of music when Regina drags her fingers through her hair.

“Ms. Swan,” Regina smiles pleasantly, and then seems to register the purple flowers in Emma’s arms with a pleasure that nearly shocks her. “You brought flowers.”

“Uh, y-yeah.”

“How lovely,” Regina touches the edge of a flower petal with her finger. “I have always loved purple,” her eyes flick up. “Did you know?”

With a mighty gulp, Emma stupidly pushes the wine and flowers in front of her like a shield.

Laughing softly, Regina leans in to put her nose into the flowers. Emma’s heart flutters at the sudden proximity, the honey-coconut smell of Regina’s conditioner, the faint cedar-like scent of her perfume.

“And you brought a Zinfandel. That’ll be wonderful,” Regina murmurs silkily, and then holds the flowers close against her chest the way she might hold a sleeping child. “How beautiful. Thank you.”

Struck dumb by tenderness, Emma merely nods her head dumbly, and smiles, watching Regina’s face as she puts her nose once more into the flowers. This close, beneath the porch light, Emma can see the lighter flecks of brown in Regina’s dark eyes.

When Regina looks up again, her face is soft.

“Why don’t you come in?”

“Okay,” Emma breathes and steps in.

The house is just as beautiful as it always is when she steps in. She is still awed by the magnificence of Regina’s house, by its endless rooms and the stately, self-assured importance that seem to make itself known in each detail of its black and white decor.

“Ms. Swan?” Regina’s voice rouses her, sounding softer, already in a different room. “Did you get lost?”

Following the direction of Regina’s voice, Emma finds her in the kitchen, where she is cutting the dried ends of the flowers and putting each spiny stem in a tall vase with water. Though her hair isn’t pulled up with a tortoise clip and she isn’t wearing that funky apron of hers, the kitchen is still warm and bright as it always is in her memory. It is full of a heady smell that Emma has started to think of as home.

On the stove, a big pot simmers beneath a quiet blue flame.

“Can I help with anything?” Emma asks.

“There’s nothing to help with,” Regina answers swiftly, but as Emma dithers helplessly at her side, clearly full of nervous energy, she eventually sighs and hands her a knife and points to the freshly washed lettuce in the sink. “Go ahead and make the salad, dear.”

“Cool,” Emma exhales, relieved.

She may not be a very skilled assistant, but she’s made Regina’s favorite salad before, and she knows it’s full of tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, avocados, and sunflower seeds. It is a small comfort. To look for a small novelty like sunflower seeds or dried cranberries and find them just where you expected them to be.

When she’s finished chopping everything, Emma finds the big glass bowl that Regina always likes to use at the top of the far-right cabinet.

She’s just about to whisk together the dressing when she realizes that the kitchen is silent. When she turns, she finds Regina watching her silently, an inscrutable expression on her face. In her hands are two wine glasses, already poured generously.

“Oh.” Emma stops.

Regina regards her quietly, and then smiles rather abruptly, as if she’d meant to start out with a smile, and only just remembered that she wasn’t.

“I figured we could enjoy a glass first,” She extends one of the glasses towards Emma. “Somehow I never imagined you as someone who knew her way around a kitchen.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Emma accepts the glass, and shrugs. “I just know how to chop things up.”

“Well, you seem to have no problem finding anything in my kitchen.”

“Lucky guess.”

“Yes,” Regina hums and sips from her wine glass. “Is that sunflower dressing that you are making?”

“Uh. Yeah, actually.”

“You’re full of hidden talents,” Regina puts down her glass and smiles with teeth. “Let me finish it. You enjoy your wine.”

Without anything to do with her hands, Emma swirls her wine glass nervously. She’d like to sip it, but this whole evening is extremely suspicious, and while she doubts Regina would bring her into her house just to poison her, she can’t quite imagine this whole invite being entirely genuine.

The color _seems_ normal. Nothing shimmers or glows. But Regina could have slipped an ordinary danger like poison.

Once sure that Regina isn’t watching her, she puts her nose into the wineglass and breathes deeply, trying to detect anything sharp or off, but all she smells is the faint smell of plums and cherries.

Well. The wine could be poisoned, or it could be cursed, or it could simply be a glass of wine.

Emma takes her first sip the way she might sip mud, her eyes squinted closed awaiting a horrible fate, but the wine doesn’t burn when it touches her tongue, and it settles easily enough in her stomach. She sighs deeply.

“Good?” Regina asks her without looking up. She is whisking the dressing into the color of gold.

“Yeah. Real good,” Emma exhales with visible relief. For now, Regina has nothing murderous planned for her.

Regina looks up, then. In the soft kitchen lighting, her face looks soft and warm and as she tucks her dark hair behind both her ears, a gesture Emma has only seen when she’s here, in this kitchen, relaxed. It softens her face.

“Good,” she says, and offers another smile, with just the corners of her mouth. A genuine smile. “Set the table, please, dear.”

***

The dinner goes well, all things considered.

It might have gone better had Emma not started it almost immediately by asking where Henry was.

Regina had just arrived at the table with an expertly made pot roast, and though table-manners would have urged Emma to thank her, and set about plating the food, its rich smell brought the memory of the first pot roast she ever tried, right here at this very dinner table four years from the future and two years from her past, and now may never happen again, due to the strange cycloid her life has turned into; once a strong flat line, her future now circles through her past and changes every second, every moment.

The thought had made Emma nervous, and stupidly jittery, and so when Regina set the glorious pot of butter yellow potatoes, gravy, and pot roast in front of her, instead of gratitude Emma felt only panic. Impulsively, to distract herself, Emma says the only thing she could possibly think to say at that moment:

“So where’s Henry?”

It is impossible to deny that Regina has done horrible, evil things, and is currently capable of doing a lot more, regardless of how she looks with bright yellow oven mitts on her hands, now placed adorably on her hips, so when Regina turns to look at her, Emma has enough self-preservation to look contritely down at her hands.

Though the question obviously punctured a hole in the atmosphere and sucked all the oxygen out of the room, with a deep, steadying breath, Regina manages to answer in a tone almost civil that Henry would not be joining them this evening.

Thankfully, nothing charms Regina more than Emma’s appetite. When Emma cuts into her pot roast and lifts the fork to her mouth, the whole evening right itself the moment the deeply animalistic groan leaves her mouth.

Regina’s eyebrows raise first, and then her chin.

“Wow,” she smiles. ‘That good, huh?”

“Oh my god,” Emma groans again, and takes another bite. She’d forgotten how _good_ of a chef Regina was. The meat really does just melt on the tongue. “This is _so_ good.”

‘Mm, I’m glad.”

Slicing a potato in half, steam warms her face as she brings it to her mouth and moans, soft as butter on her tongue.

“It’s been so long since I have had food this good.” she sighs.

Regina barely glances up at her, but in her midnight eyes Emma can see the spark of satisfaction.

The first time Emma was invited to Regina’s house for dinner, it had been an awkward affair, offered mostly as a peace treaty to break the cold silence that had come as a result from an argument a week or so before which had been about something extremely minimal but had indicated to them both an utter lack of trust or understanding in the other that riled up hurtful accusations. And though it had been quiet, and awkward, and neither one of them had really known how to repair things, when she cut into whatever was on her plate, whether it was lamb with mint or roasted duck, she remembers being brought near tears at the taste of a proper home cooked meal that had escaped her all her life. She’d devoured it quickly, and only barely restrained herself from licking the plate, and when she had finished, she looked up to see softness in Regina’s eyes. That night, though quiet and awkward, had changed things between them forever.

And just like then, Emma can feel things changing again. While there is no softness in Regina’s eyes now, there is something else. Something dark and warm and _intense_.

Staring at those eyes makes her skin hot and tingly. Clearing her throat, Emma drops her eyes and takes a hearty, hearty sip of wine to blot out her thoughts.

With the eye contact broken, Regina inclines her eyebrow and regards Emma’s plate again. She smiles, finding it already empty.

“My god. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who eats as quickly as you do.”

Emma laughs. “Yeah, I don’t think I have either.”

“Well, there’s plenty more if you want it.”

“Oh, no. That’s dangerous.”

“Well, we’re in an awkward predicament, Ms. Swan,” Regina sets her fork neatly against a nearly full plate, “I was taught as a child that a hostess should never eat while her guest had an empty plate. I must offer you something. Dessert perhaps?”

“Very tempting. But, that’d probably get you ten seconds, tops, to finish your plate,” she laughs, “Here I’ll scoop myself some more salad, ease your mind.”

“Good,” Regina’s eyes crinkle, amused, “Though, I can’t say my mind is eased.”

“My table manners are horrible, I know. But to be fair, most of my foster parents were pigs.”

“Ah.”

“No, really. All pigs. I hated the mud, but their eating habits I found inspiring.”

Regina laughs brightly. “You’re ridiculous.”

Yet her dark eyes are shining brightly, lit from within with intensity. After that, she watches Emma for a long while over the rim of her wine glass. Tracking her movements, following her second from second. Oh yes. She’s enjoying this. Not just the banter, but _this._ Time with _Emma_.

By the time dinner is finished, they are well into their second bottle of wine, and Emma is beginning to feel soft and woozy. She’s ready for a movie or a game on Regina’s couch, anything really that will allow her to lean her head on Regina’s shoulder halfway through and rest her eyes.

As if reading her mind, Regina stands up with a wine glass in hand.

“You look tired,” Regina comes to stand beside Emma’s chair, her gaze almost tender, “Let’s go to the couch.”

“The couch?” Emma echoes blankly and looks over to the family room where most of her time in Regina’s house is spent.

“Yes, the couch.” Regina mocks her lightly as if Emma were balking with fear.

But in truth, it did seem dangerous. To follow Regina deeper into her house seemed equally as foolish as the teens in horror movies who decided that since they were young, they could not possibly be killed and entered, brashly, a place where so many others died.

“Oh,” Emma dithers, and almost comes up with an excuse, but then Regina runs a soft hand through her hair.

Emma can do nothing but stand and follow her out of the room.

The couch is a black leather couch that always lets out a small breath upon sitting down. Emma sits down first, and as Regina settles down beside her, tucking her knees beneath herself, she slides her hand gently along Emma’s thigh, inspiring with that soft touch a tiny explosion of electricity that prickles up Emma’s neck.

Panic. Apprehension. _Excitement_.

“Oh, Backgammon!” Emma exclaims abruptly, seeing the familiar board game hidden beneath a few slim magazines. She reaches for it as a drowning woman would grip a life buoy. “We should play.”

Regina blinks at her, her face emptying of all expression.

“A board game?” She repeats uncertainty. Her hand slips away from Emma’s thigh. “That’s what you’d like to do right now?”

“Yeah,” Emma barely keeps herself from squeaking.

Regina stares at her for a long moment. And then the corners of her eyes crinkle with some amusement, some minor interest.

“Alright,” Regina says, and takes the board out of the box, “Although I would have never guessed that you knew how to play Backgammon.” 

Shifting back a bit, Regina spreads the board out on the cushion between them and lines the little black and white pebbles into a neat line.

“I’m decent at it,” Emma says, and smiles, warmed by the memory of her first lesson in the game. Regina had been unprecedentedly patient as Emma became nearly implacable with her growing losses. “Though I’ve yet to beat anyone at it.”

Regina laughs— a full, deep laugh, beautiful like the sound the color bronze might make.

 _“_ And you think that’ll change with me?”

“Hard to say, Madam Mayor, but I do feel very lucky tonight.”

“Well,” There is a soft drawl in her voice, and when Regina looks up again, her dark eyes glimmer with secret pleasure. “Let’s hope you get lucky with me.”

***

Unsurprisingly, Emma does not win once though they play several games. It is worthwhile if only to see Regina lose her reserve completely in competition, like always, being an extremely bad sport even when she is winning, she gloats, and curses obscenely and even _whoops_ once in complete victory when she’d devastated Emma’s hopes once again.

Time passes so quickly that by the time Emma checks her watch, it is nearing midnight.

“Wow, it’s late,” she says, and slides her feet to the soft white carpet, “I should get going.”

As she begins to stand, however, a soft weight on her arm stops her. She looks down to find Regina’s hand on her forearm, a weight so soft that it has likely been there for a while, unnoticed.

Regina’s lips quirk with surprise “Really?” she asks with such blank astonishment it is as if she never imagined that Emma would leave her house again, “You’ve had quite a bit of wine, haven’t you?” she asks.

“Oh, well, yeah, but it’s been more than enough time,” Emma clears her throat and glances again to the hand still on her arm, which has begun to softly caress her with just the tips of her fingers, “I’m sure I’m good to drive.”

“Well, there’s no reason for you to leave so quickly. There’s plenty of beds for you to sleep in, too,” she smiles, “You only need to pick one.”

“Oh, uh. That’s sweet,” Emma thumbs her ear to hide the blush in her cheeks, “But it’s near midnight, and my roommate is probably worried about me.”

“Well, alright,” Regina lets out a little sigh and slides her hand down Emma’s arm, almost absentmindedly; though she makes no other remark to undermine Emma’s argument, her warm palm seems to be making a point on its own as it smooths down the soft golden hairs on Emma’s arm and then slides back up again. The touch is warm and smooth and solid enough to make Emma sink fully back on the couch.

”But...you know, I’m sure Mary Margaret would understand if I let her know I had to stay.” Emma hears herself say. The words amaze her.

The side of Regina’s mouth curves into a smile. “Yes. I’m sure she would.”

Swallowing quietly, Emma looks down at Regina’s warm brown hand. Her fingers are slender and her palm smooth and warm as it molds over Emma’s wrist and then lightly pushes up to the crook of Emma’s elbow before rounding back, each caress going further now that Emma has sunk back down into the couch. It is such a warm, gentle movement, it makes Emma’s breath revv in the back of her throat.

When she looks up again, she finds Regina watching her, her eyes dark and keen. Her face is not entirely soft, yet there is a warm intensity there that promises tenderness and a gentle touch.

Her lower abdomen _twinges_ with arousal, like a zipper running down, but before Emma can make any reckless decision that would likely destroy her entire future, she stands and breaks all contact.

“Sorry,” she rasps, and picks up her jacket and socks. “But I really should go.”

Regina drops her hand to the couch and exhales quickly through her nose, the only sign of her disappointment.

“Very well,” she sighs, and folds her hands into her lap, “Drive safe, dear.”

“I will. Uh. Alright, bye,” she exhales messily, starts for the door, then stops, turns again, “Thanks for inviting me, it was really great. I had a really good time. Um. Thanks for everything.”

Then she bolts for the door.

In her car, as the motor drones quietly and the air streams full blast on her warm face, Emma lays her forehead onto the wheel.

“Oh god,” she groans, “What am I _doing_?”

The drive is silent all the way back to her apartment. When she walks through the door, she finds the light still on, and her mother asleep in the corner of the big oatmeal couch they often share. An open book rests on her chest, her hands folded neatly over her lap as she breathes quietly.

Tenderness gathers in her throat. Moving quietly, Emma hangs her jacket and kicks off her shoes so that she may move quietly in soft socketed feet to stand over her sleeping mother.

A small, dense ball of tension made entirely of space sits in her chest, as it has for nearly three decades, since she first began to understand that her life was full of missing things, things that so many others had without thought, without wanting or asking or begging, and that these absences took the place of something she could never truly understand on her own. She could not even fully articulate what she missed, but as she watches her mother sleep, she knew at once that this was one of the things she cried for at night when no mother would come.

Quietly, Emma crawls like a child onto the cushion beside her mother. This at least is a relationship she can indulge in without her future crumbling into her hands.

“Mom?” Emma whispers softly, then wincing, she nudges her roommate gently with a hand. “Mary Margret?”

Mary Margaret’s eyelashes flutter, and then slowly, peeking through her eyelids, her face draws together in concern.

“Emma?” she asks, her voice heavy with sleep. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she tries to smile, but she is trembling. “I just thought I’d wake you – you didn’t have to stay up for me like that you know.”

A smile crinkles her cheek. “I know, I wanted to,” then, despite the fact that her mother is a stranger who hardly knows enough about motherhood to understand the needs of an infant much less a grown woman, she follows a silent impulse that Emma will forever miss and struggles to articulate once the curse breaks. “Wanna hug?” she asks.

With a shaky watery breath, Emma falls soundlessly into her mother’s arms. She nuzzles her cheek closer until she is tucked fully beneath her mom’s chin.

Mary Margret gently presses her closer, slides her fingers quietly through her daughter’s hair.

Sleepily, only half-conscious, her mother murmurs softly: “My baby. My poor baby.”

A prickling heat warms Emma’s eyes, but she keeps them closed, smiling against her sleeping mother.

***

The morning is quiet. Waking slowly, Emma keeps her eyes closed as the room settles around her. A soft patter of rain taps on the glass. The light morning breeze brings in the smell of the ocean and the faint sound of the gulls. For a moment, everything seems normal. It seems possible that she might have been returned to her timeline without incident, that whatever wish of hers that put her future into such jeopardy was actually only a minor passing fancy, and that she’d be allowed to return once she’d learned her lesson.

But as she lays there in bed, blinking up at the ceiling, the hope fades. Most likely, she’d have woken up to the egg-shell white walls of her new empty house with Hook, had she really returned. But even so, mornings in her parents’ apartment have always been loud. First, because there was always something to do, something to worry about, something to prepare for. And then, when everything settled, the noise never seemed to leave.

By now, Neal would already be awake, either playing or crying in those sonic-like shrieks of his as his mother prepares breakfast and David packs the lunches. Or, if Neal is already gone, securely holding his mother’s hand, David’s old records will thrum through the walls as he washes the dishes.

But it is quiet. Her family, not yet made, is scattered across town with no love for one another. She can imagine them in their own rooms, alone, separated by walls of distrust for each other. Her father is likely sitting on the edge of a guest bed, anxious to get up and start the day but dreading the inevitable tension with his wife. Henry might still be asleep, but when he wakes, he will spend his morning diligently drawing connections from his book to the lives of the sleepwalkers amongst him.

Regina has likely been awake for hours. She will probably be staring out into the cool blue morning, finishing her coffee, and occasionally checking her watch, waiting for her son to come down. Soon, she will have to climb those stairs and wake him herself, but she will wait until the last possible minute. She will wait until her coffee is finished, and the light of the morning turns pink against the clouds.

In her own time, would Regina be in the kitchen still, drinking coffee? Or would she be pacing now, having realized that Emma is gone. Or is her future merely on pause? The thought was horrible: her whole world unmade, suspended in place. All those dinners with Regina, those loud clustered mornings with her parents, the soft corner of Henry’s bed where she used to sit and listen to his stories, warm in the evening light. That one night when she put her head down on Regina’s shoulder and felt a soft, tentative brush of lips against her hair. Is it all gone now? All of it?

The morning air flutters the curtains, wrinkling them behind her bed frame. Above, a soft blue spotless sky, too big to imagine fully. She breathes quietly and closes her eyes.

A timid knock raps on her door, far too timid to be anyone else but Mary Margaret.

“I’m making eggs,” her voice is a mouse-soft whisper, “Do you want toast?”

Emma rubs her face with her hands.

“Yeah,” she says. “That’d be great, thanks.”

By the time Emma makes it downstairs, her breakfast is ready and covered with a pan. A paper napkin waits beside the plate, folded in half, and weighed down by a warm cup of coffee. 

“Thanks.”

“Of course,” Mary Margaret chirps, “So. What happened last night?”

Emma pauses. Though her roommate’s voice is soft, there is an edge of interest that stiffens Emma’s spine. Is it possible that she somehow guessed her interest in Regina? Her mother might have, due to the suspicious circumstances, but when Emma turns around, her roommate’s face is as calm as before, as unsuspecting. Emma sighs softly.

“Oh yeah,” Biting into her toast, Emma carries her mug and plate over to where her roommate sits, “I went over to Regina’s last night for dinner.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Mary Margret’s earnest enthusiasm nearly folds her heart beneath her stomach, “I’m so glad you two are trying to be friends. This will be _so good_ for Henry.”

“Well, don’t get too excited,” Chuckling, Emma pops open the jar of apricot marmalade and sticks her knife into it, “I won’t be doing it again anytime soon.”

“Oh _no_. Did it not go alright?”

“No, it went’ fine,” Emma sighs, and squints out at the dented white window, the blue sky outside battered with soft wisps of clouds, “Things are just really complicated with her, and I don’t think it would be a good idea to get any more involved.”

“Any _more_ involved?” Mary Margaret echoes teasingly, “She adopted your son, Emma. I don’t think that’s going away. If you want a role with him, you’re going to have to go through her. ”

“I know _that_. It’s just – ” Emma shrugs, and rubs her forehead, “It’s just really not the right time. Things are just complicated.”

The phrase, repeated once more, finally clicks. Her roommate’s eyebrows slowly draw together, coming together with a growing understanding.

“Complicated how?” she asks slowly.

Emma sighs. “Not like that.”

But.

When Emma closes her eyes, she can still see Regina on the couch. How soft, and gentle she looked backlit by a single porch light, how her face relaxed and softened against the knuckles of her hand as she leaned into the couch. How her lips spread slowly against her teeth when she smiled. The weight of her fingers on Emma’s arm. The way she trailed those fingers down slowly, gently, in the way of a promise.

Emma clears her throat. “It would just simplify things if I stayed away from her right now.”

A beat of silence passes. When she looks up, Mary Margaret has soft eyes, and what seems like and endless worry for her wellbeing.

“Not forever, obviously. I think Regina and I could develop a really amazing friendship down the line, if we stick at it,” she avoids her mother’s eyes, focusing instead on intently spreading the marmalade evenly across her slice of toast, “But not right now. Maybe when we know each other a little better, and we’re both in a better place. I think if I try to be her friend now, we’d just destroy each other.”

For a beat, nobody speaks. When Emma takes a bite of her toast, she glances up to find her mother’s face drawn together with doubt. The refrigerator hums quietly between them.

Emma looks down at her plate. Don’t be fooled, she thinks. Her mother wouldn’t be giving this same advice if she knew the full picture. When frightened, Regina is capable of anything, and currently, Regina cannot yet imagine a worse fate than the end of her curse. She must remember that.

Yet, five minutes later when she pops her last bite of bread in her mouth and puts all her dishes in the sink, her mother is still watching her.

At last, Emma groans, “ _What_?”

“I just can’t help but wonder if that’s the best choice,” Mary Margaret holds up her hands hastily in a gentle surrender, “I mean, you’re going to keep yourself from developing a friendship with Regina _now_ so that you can _possibly_ be her friend in the future?”

“ _Yeah_.”

“Alright.”

“Look, Regina is only pursuing me right now for her own evil agenda,” Mary Margaret looks at her with an exaggerated gentleness, one that Emma has watched pass between mothers and their children on a daily basis, but never quite between her and her own mother. It puts a slight tremble into her voice, “I’m serious. The only thing Regina wants right now is to make sure that I can never pose a threat to her ever again. She’s already tried pure vitriol; it makes sense that she’d try something a little different now that she knows it’s not working.”

“Oh Emma,” her mother sighs, fondly, but with pity, “You can’t possibly know that.”

“You’d be surprised.” She mumbles into her coffee cup.

“What does _that_ mean?”

“Nothing,” Emma shrugs, “Just trust me, alright? A few months from now, you’ll see why. I just have to stay away from her until then.”

“Alright.” Mary Margaret merely shrugs and looks out the window.

Though her expression mostly congenial once more, there is a firmness in her tone, a cool teacherly quality, as if Emma were an unruly student of hers that has shown, once again, that she is beyond rebuke.

“Okay," Emma sighs. "What is it?”

Her mother shrugs again. “You’ve just never been all that good at that.”

***

Though it is still early, and she has enough time for a run, she decides to go to the station instead. Her office is quiet in the mornings, the phones silent for another two hours before the townspeople fully wake and find that some kids have vandalized their wall or that the cat has disappeared or that a neighbor has their music on far too loud. Simple, minor disruptions that rock their calm, sleepy lives through the years. She imagines if she gets there early, she will have at least two hours to brainstorm a way back home.

Ten minutes later, Emma is in her office, her notepad out. She clicks her pen readily, though she cannot imagine what to write. There have been minor changes, she knows, but nothing damning. Only one dinner, and perhaps a little more laughter between her and Regina, though she can’t imagine that would cost her the entirety of her future. She has lost no more than a few weeks, which will likely amount to nothing in the end.

This is a good thing, of course. It will be easier to find a way back to her own timeline without worrying about any loose-ends to tie up. Who knows what future she would create if she stayed any longer? It’s too risky. She could lose everything that matters to her: her family, her loving, intelligent son, her beautiful loving friend, and co-parent.

And yet the thought of going back when nothing has really changed deadens the feeling in her heart.

Behind her, the windows tremble with the wind. A draft passes over her back, and she shivers. On the dusty black computer screen, the reflection of the maple trees sways, its red and yellow leaves catching the light. Somewhere in the distance, there’s the sound of a lawnmower, far enough away to sound almost gentle, neighborly.

Clicking her pen again, she absentmindedly writes the date in the corner.

“You’re here early.”

With a jolt, Emma looks up.

Regina stands in the entryway of her office with a black wool jacket hanging over her arm, and an ease in her stance as if she has been standing there for a while. It is entirely too possible. Regina shares with predators a talent for moving in the dark and appearing in a room without a single sound, as if materialized by thought alone.

“Regina,” Emma croaks, unable to swallow the nervous excitement in her heart. She coughs, “Uh— sorry, Madame Mayor. Can I help you?”

A light enters Regina’s eyes. When amused, her eyes can warm into a deep amber color like that of an apothecary bottle raised up to the sun. Smiling softly, Regina slides off the wall and approaches Emma with a lazy killing ease.

“No, dear,” she says affectionately, and slows as she reaches the edge of Emma’s desk, “I merely wanted to check on you. You left so late last night.”

“Oh, uh yeah. Yeah it was late,” Warmth trickling up her neck, Emma watches as Regina’s neatly pointed black shoes move across the small space and stand beside her own boots, “But yeah. I’m good.”

“You’re not too tired, I hope?”

Hearing the rift of amusement in her voice, Emma looks up to find entirely too much satisfaction in Regina’s broad, beautiful face. She is making a fool of herself, she knows, but she cannot quite pull herself together again while in the shade of Regina’s cool, looming shadow.

“No,” Emma breathes, “I had fun.”

“I did too,” she looks down at Emma with a small wicked smile. “We should do it again some time.”

A painfully endless hope blooms in her chest.

“I’d love that,” Emma says softly.

“Good.” Regina smiles like she’s ticked a task off her to-do list and lets her hand settle on the back of Emma’s chair. “I didn’t realize you’d be here so early, my dear. I would have brought you coffee if I knew.”

“Oh?” Emma laughs feebly, “Why are _you_ here so early, then? Were you hoping to lay here in wait and catch me unawares?”

“Maybe,” Regina’s eyes twinkle faintly with danger, and Emma’s harried heart flutters.

Then, Regina shifts ever closer, her hip pressing gently against Emma’s arm. With the warmth of Regina’s body surrounding her, something in Emma melts and makes her go soft against her chair. Tilting her head to look at Regina, Emma catches a flash of interest in Regina’s eyes, narrowing down on the notepad beneath Emma’s hand.

“What are you working on?” With the tips of her fingers she skims the side of Emma’s wrist, pressing gently to reveal the papers beneath.

Immediately, Emma flattens her palm over the notepad again. Her scribbled notes are likely incomprehensible to the cursory eye, but Regina happens to be the quickest, most intelligent person she knows, so she can’t risk it.

“Just some notes.”

Regina arches a single eyebrow down at her.

Emma does her best not to shrink. _God_. Where did her confidence _go_? She can deal with an angry, vengeful Regina so easily, but for some reason this seductive version has turned her into putty.

“What?” Regina’s smile sharpens, “I’m not allowed to see?”

“It’s just boring stuff,” Emma musters a laugh and angles the notepad even further away, “Nothing exciting.”

Regina’s keen eyes narrow. “I can see my name.” An unnerving pause. “Are you taking notes about _me_?”

Her heart shivers.

“Yeah,” Emma says, and shrugs shakily, “Some. Just town business stuff.”

A tense silence passes. The windows tremble again, the wind pushing against glass. In the far distance, the lawnmower buzzes on.

At last, Regina withdraws her hand from the desk.

“Very well.” She says, and slowly steps back. In mere seconds, she has smoothly transitioned back into the cool, uncaring mayor, likely a more comfortable role. “I will let you get back to work, then.”

“Okay,” Emma mumbles, and tries not to feel glum at being set free.

As Regina slides on her coat, she must take notice of the downcast expression on Emma’s face for the corner of her mouth softens.

“I’ll text you later today,” Regina says softly, her smile almost genuine, “About dinner.”

Emma just nods, unable to do anything about the hapless smile that blooms on her face. 

When the dark tail of Regina’s dark coat flutters out the door, Emma sinks into her chair like cooling wax. _Fuck._ Avoiding Regina is going to be much harder than she thought.

Smoothing out the note paper again, she writes the date in the upper right corner.

_Notes: October 26 th _

  * _Regina hates you. She doesn’t want to be your friend_



She underlines hates and doesn’t twice, for emphasis. Since she clearly needs the reminder.

***

For two days after that, Emma keeps her phone turned off and shoved in her back pocket. Any messages sent to her in that time, she imagines, fall into abstract instead, mislaid by a mere connection error, they drop into the soft blank nothingness in her back pocket. It does nothing to ease her anxiety, but it does wall her access to Regina. In those two days, Emma spends most of her time ducking out of the door the moment she hears the Mayor’s heels, avoiding the Mayor’s office, and completing every silly work task that doesn’t immediately bring her to the Mayor. The rest of her time, she spends skimming through the blank pages of her mostly unused notepad, nibbling on the edge of a grubby black pencil as she tries to uncork the high-pressure carboy of seething, worried thoughts in her head.

All she’s done yet is write the word _Notes : _and underline it for effect.

Normally, she relied on Regina to help her comprehend the rules and possible consequences of this world’s magic, but she doubts Regina would volley any of her questions about magic right now.

Which, unfortunately, leaves her only Gold.

The late afternoon wind blows icily into her jacket as she walks down Maine. Huffing, she bundles closer, hopelessly missing the thick Sherpa-lined jacket that Regina will buy for her in another year.

Turning the corner, she stops at Gold’s shop. It looks the same as always. Through the murky windows, she can see the crowded, disorganized space, an immaculate display of unimaginably lonely things. Things that seem doomed to be forgotten or sold away, eventually.

A trill of a bell rings when Emma enters. The smell of the shop surrounds her, sharp and vaguely wooden like pencil shavings, the air full of dust.

Emma never liked being alone in this space. It radiates a sort of tension, the way some historical places do, as if each object hoarded here has the sentience to remember how it got here and understands deeply their individual loss and misfortune. Impatience clings to air.

Small delicate trinkets await some fate in their sea-green bowls, as do the dolls lining the wall. From the ceiling, glass mystical creatures twirl quietly on string, catching the light.

In a small brown bowl on an old dusty desk, a shiny black diamond twinkles for her attention.

Hesitantly, Emma lets her finger trail against the smooth face, its bluffed edge, star-struck by its black glittery depth. Tentatively, she picks up the diamond and weighs it curiously in her palm.

The moment the diamond settles in her palm, Emma is struck immediately by the image of Regina: beautiful and awe-struck with this small black diamond strung delicately around her neck. It pierces her mind as instantly as an icicle might drop upon her skull. A quiet drumming fills her head, beating behind her ear. _She could be yours. Yours_. Her vision swims, and suddenly the air feels faraway, rarified. She could buy it. It could be a gift — Regina would love it. Emma can almost imagine the slow transition on Regina’s face from surprise to awe to tenderness, to love.

“Careful with that, dearie,” A light amused voice carries down the hall. “It’s cursed.”

Gradually, Emma feels herself return to the room in degrees. First her feet, then her shoulders, then her head. Her fingers tingle. In the dusty light, the diamond turns a dizzy, swimming blue.

When she’s fully returns, she sees Gold smiling sedately at her from behind his counter. 

Years ago, she might have merely scoffed. It’s a rock, she might have laughed. A piece of carbon compressed in the earth. No more capable of evil than a leaf or a piece of glass. She might have tossed the diamond carelessly back at him. Now, though, with the image of Regina’s beautiful, awe-struck smile in her mind, she barely musters a scoff before she hastily sets it back down where she found it.

“I’m a little tired of curses,” Emma glowers at Mr. Gold’s thin, quirky face. “You got anything else? Maybe something a little more light-hearted?”

Amusement brightens his eyes. “What do you have in mind, Sheriff?”

With a shrug, Emma glances down at the desk drawer, the minimal glitter of rocks and gems now full of magical potential.

“I don’t know,” she extends a finger towards a soft brown feather, but doesn’t dare let herself touch it, “Got anything that could bump me a few years into the future?”

“Nothing comes to mind, dearie,” Gold watches her for a long beat, his smile unchanging, “Although If you’re hoping to avoid your present, dear, might I suggest a simpler solution. Like a book or a long bath.”

“Funny,” Emma grunts, “Come on, Gold. I’m curious. You’ve never heard of people traveling through time?”

“Well. Not to the future, at least.”

“Oh?” Subtly, Emma feels for the notepad in her back pocket. Did she remember her pen? “Why not the future?”

“I’m surprised by your interest in the otherworldly, Sheriff,” Gold observes, “You’re not often this imaginative.”

“Well, you know. I’ve got a lot of time on my hands,” she shrugs, and finds the small black pencil in her shirt pocket with relief, “Got to keep my mind sharp with new ideas.”

“Of course.”

“So,” she clears her throat, hoping her voice seems casual as she flips open her notepad. “Say someone accidentally travels to the past. What’s keeping them from going back to the future?”

“Hypothetically?” He asks, smilingly.

“Yes,” she grits out, “Of course. Hypothetically.”

“I doubt it’s impossible. I only mean that I’ve never heard it before,” Gold says, and idly smooths his palm across the counter, flicks off a microscopic piece of dust, “You can’t walk into something undetermined, you’d have as much luck traveling into the future as you’d have walking through a tunnel before it’s even been carved into. The past, however,” he shrugs, “The past is susceptible. People get stuck in the past all the time.”

Emma hums and nods, writes down below _Notes : October 29th _

  * _Future isn’t set – stupid tunnel metaphor._



“Okay. But say you knew your future,” she clears away the blip of nervousness in her voice, “For whatever reason. Would you be able to go into the future, then?”

“I’d imagine so,” Gold hums, and splays his fingers out across the glass panel, “For a short period of time, at least.”

Her throat constricts. “Short? Really? Why?”

“As I said,” A slight humor enters his expression, “The past determines the future. If you change your past, dearie, there is no guarantee that your future will be the same.”

“Well, then how can I get back to the present, then?” she cannot hide the desperation in her voice.

Like a cat with a mouse, Gold retreats placidly when his prey is cornered, “We’re talking in rather abstract terms, Ms. Swan. I’d suggest you talk to Dr. Hopper if you want to stop dwelling in your past.”

Emma’s jaw clenches, “I’m not _dwelling_ in my past.”

“Don’t be so sure, dearie. Our minds are fickle. It can create obstacles you can’t imagine,” When she looks up again, Gold’s eyes are cool and clear, holding more understanding than they should, “Be careful not to dwell for too long, dearie. There are unforeseen consequences to every decision. You may lose yourself to things that are best buried.”

Unbidden, like a shiver, comes the thought of Regina’s awestruck smile, her beautiful dark eyes.

“Yeah. Great, thanks.” She grumbles, but diligently still scribbles down his words down as notes.

 _ Notes _ _: October 29 th _

  * _Future isn’t set – stupid tunnel metaphor._
  * _There are unforeseen consequences to every decision_
  * _Is this like that stupid movie with Ashton Kutcher?? Horrible movie. _



With a sigh, she closes her notebook. “Well, thanks for your time”

Just then, a static sound buzzes in the air.

Pausing, Emma frowns quizzically at Gold. For a brief moment, she believes the sound comes from somewhere beneath the counter, but as the static augments, she registers the faint vibration against the side of her hip. She glances down at the walkie strapped on her black belt, notes the small green light glimmering between its speakers: on, active, in range.

_“Sheriff Swan?”_

Oh no. With a sigh, Emma glares at Gold warningly, and unstraps her walkie, brings it to her mouth.

“Hey, Madame Mayor, what can I do for you?”

“ _Why have you not been answering your phone?_

Flinching, Emma scowls at Gold’s raised eyebrows and turns towards the back of the store where it is quieter, the walls all paneled by soft brown paper.

“Uh hey, yeah. Sorry about that,” She lowers her voice with a quiet appeal _,_ “I’ve been really busy. You know, I’m actually out on a job right now--”

Static overlays, and she sighs, releasing her thumb.

_“—nny. “Really busy’ doesn’t explain why I have been unable to contact you at all in the last two days. Not during your office hours, from your own phone, or from your work phone. I had to go to your office and call you from your own walkie._

There’s a brief pause. When the static lays in the air again, Regina’s voice is sharp with hurt, _I thought we had dinner plans._

 _Fuck,_ Emma mouths to herself. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”

There is an incredulous pause, longer than the last, and in the absence of all sound, Emma can perfectly imagine the fury on Regina’s face.

“ _Well_ , do _you_ -” the static momentarily cuts the force of her voice, “ _—h-ave an explanation?!”_

With a wince, Emma glances furtively back at Gold’s solitary figure, and though he cuts a rather unmotivated figure behind the counter, with that calm blank face of his, he is well within hearing distance, and so she lowers her voice. “I, uh, actually turned my phone off a few days. To…uh,” she winces, “Clear my head.”

_“Well, I’m sure that’s very soothing for the soul, it’s not very practical for a woman with a job and a child she wants to get to know. Is it?”_

Emma rolls her head up to the ceiling and futilely scans over the white pebbled texture in search of some pattern. At least that she can do without error. Just connect the dots. Simple. Perhaps when she gets back to her normal timeline, she can retire. Instead of the Savior, she can be a painter or a builder or something.

_“Ms. Swan?”_

“Sorry, Madame Mayor,” Emma rubs her face. How did she ever convince herself that _ignoring_ Regina might actually make things easier? “Won’t happen again.”

_“It better not.”_

She huffs, “Is there something I can do for you?”

There is a long, deep pause.

Then, a short-clipped tone, Regina says: “ _I would like to invite you to lunch.”_

“Oh yeah?” Emma rubs her forehead wearily, “Man, that’s –uh, sweet. But uh, actually, I just ate.”

_“Really?”_

“Yup. Just ate.”

_“Well, come by my office anyway. I want to see you.”_

Her heart erupts at the admission, though Regina’s tone is still too irritated to be sultry. Strapping the walkie on her waist again, Emma clears her throat, and levels at Gold the steadiest glare she can muster with her cheeks aflame.

She points at him as she leaves. “This isn’t over Gold.”

With a small, uninterested smile, he merely nods.

Outside, the sky is cooling into a soft blue. In neat symmetrical rows, the windows of storefronts give back large panels of the sky.

Town Hall always seemed needlessly big. When she saw it for the first time, the place struck her only as odd, and a little amusing, to see such a small remote town center itself around a building with such modern flair; it stood out from the rest of the town like a black fin in calm water with its domed ceiling, black-and-white décor, and all of its sleek oval mirrors. Now, though, the resemblance of a castle is undeniable. The air permeates with unspoken royalty.

She can’t quiet shake the bubbling nervousness in her stomach as she climbs the spiral stairs towards Regina’s office. She never feared Regina before, not really. She didn’t have the insight to. During the curse, Regina had seemed despotic, irrational and vengeful, but still a woman connected to her son, and thus relatively limited by reason and the morality of this world. But now she knows that while Regina is still a mother deep at the heart of her, there is no limit to her worst potential. Her fear of losing is incalculable, a quicksand of constant anxiety. There’s no telling what she might do.

 _You know Regina,_ she reassures herself. _You’ve known her at her worst. You can handle whatever this is._

Turning the final round of the staircase, however, her heart jolts at the sight of the empty secretary’s desk. It’s only 5:30pm, and Regina rarely asks her secretary to leave early. Emma can recall it happening three times, total, and of those three times, twice a monster had collapsed the Mayor’s office. The third was for a quieter afternoon in the vault with Robin, to which she can only imagine the possibilities of what happened there, but she suspects it’s for a similar reason that she has been invited to the office.

“Oh boy.” She breathes.

Her fingers pause on the Mayor’s door handle. On the other side she can hear nothing but the slight creak of floorboards and the hum of a computer monitor. Slowly, with the tips of her fingers, she presses down the handle and opens the door without a sound.

Through the slight slit of the door, Emma spots Regina’s back first, the muscles softly exposed by the slant of her body as she peers closely into a mirror. Hands card delicately through her black hair as Regina studies her own reflection, tilting her face slightly up, and then down, seemingly indecisive on the most flattering angle of her hair until finally she settles on a slightly wild, undone look. She puckers her lips, applies a darker shade of lipstick, and then pulls her black dress up a little so that the span of thigh visible extends deliciously to the more uncharted areas nearer the curve of her buttocks.

Emma barely suppresses her whimper.

If she enters this office, she knows what will happen. Without a doubt, she’ll lose herself. Regina would win, and the curse would never break. She can picture it perfectly. Regina would only have to sit there, eased softly against her chair, with her arms bare and her dress rucked up -- she’d only have to convey the slightest hint of longing or look upon her with adoration, and Emma would kneel beneath Regina’s thumb and never have the strength to rise up again.

Blood rackets loudly in her ear. There is a tingling lightness in her head, a tremble to her knees. Maybe…it wouldn’t end like that. Maybe…

 _No_ , she gingerly closes the door. She closes her eyes. _No_.

Turning, she walks leadenly down the big spiral stairs, a shadow on her heart. With every step, the possibility of her future feels a little more made again; it lines up in front of her eyes like the horizon, an infinite remote line, extending always further away from where she wants to be.

 _Stupid_. What is she doing here? Did she really think anything could change? She can’t just not break the curse. She will always be bound by that responsibility, and whatever minor differences that might have potentially changed the course of her relationship with Regina…well, if not wrecked now, it will be dissolved by the curse breaking.

Out in the cooling air, Emma shivers beneath the presence of the stars. Their light shines coldly upon her like thousands of little blue emissions of an X-ray, exposing what feels like endless sequence of shadows in her heart.

It’s the time of the evening where everything seems to be withdrawing to the dark, all but the flowers. White and orange flowers bob against windowpanes as lightly as moth wings.

Jingling her car keys, she walks to her car. On the way, a little buzz in her pack pocket stops her. She pulls it out, and sighs. Regina.

Regina _: [5:47] When should I expect you, dear?_

Emma groans.

_[5:47] Sorry. Something came up._

For a moment, she waits for a response. When none comes, she shoves the phone deep in her pocket and walks to her car, parked four blocks down. It’s near fifteen minutes later before there’s a response. It comes to her in the parking lot of her mother’s apartment, still in her car, listening to the quiet drone of her car’s motor. 

Her heart trembles. Unable to resist, she fishes out her phone.

Regina _: [6:10] Very well, Ms. Swan._

Though tame, the chilly text still cuts straight through her heart. She hates when Regina is mad at her, even now. Bowing her head against the car wheel, she groans.

***

When Emma unlocks the door to her mother’s apartment, the dense, obligatory silence that follows her footsteps makes it immediately clear that she has intruded on something. The apartment is overly warm and smells freshly of baked bread. An unfamiliar blue scarf is curled on the counter like a question mark, and a pair of her father’s shoes are lined neatly beside her own.

Treading further into the apartment, she finds Mary Margaret and David cuddling on the couch. By the mortified flush on Mary Margaret’s smiling face, she clearly was not expecting Emma home anytime soon.

“Emma,” she exclaims unevenly, “I wasn’t expecting you!”

“Yeah, I can see that” Emma tries to match the smooth, unembarrassed tone she might have expressed had she no memory of her parents, “I can take off again, if you want.”

Her hand instinctively touches the phone in her back pocket, though she did just bar any possibility of being with Regina.

“No, no, don’t do that,” Mary Margaret clears her throat, and smooths a dark strand of hair behind her ear, clearly trying to recoup, “But…do you think we could have the family room for a little while?”

“Oh yeah. Of course.”

“And can you turn off the kitchen light?”

“Yeah,” she cringes. “Of course.”

On her way out, she decides to sneak a bottle of wine from the fridge. Soft laughter quavers in the other room, the mellow happy sounds of two people unabashedly falling in love again.

Beneath the cool blue light of the refrigerator, Emma feels an upwelling of loneliness so powerful she has to suck her teeth to keep from making a noise. Her relationships with men have never come close to the love her mother has felt for David. Never, not after all the work she has done to open up, to fall in love, to make up for what she doesn’t feel. She has only ever felt _a_ sort of happiness with them, a feeling adjacent to the love her mother has felt.

And the one she _does_ want —

Well. There are some walls too high to climb, too dangerous to even try.

Plodding up the stairs with a glass and a bottle of wine tucked hazardously into her arm, Emma closes the door to her door behind her. At last, the soft murmur of her parent’s laughter dims into the quiet.

In the soft quiet of her room, Emma splays out on the cool sheets of her bed, and sips her wine, watching the oversized shadows from the trees outside dance across her ceiling. Dwelling on her heart is a familiar heaviness, the self-pitying sulk she could fall into so easily on any night that wasn’t a Friday in her own timeline. Alone with Hook, she might drink until the black hole of her loneliness puts a piercing pain in her heart that could only be fixed by a fight or sex, though she managed the latter more and more with her eyes closed. To imagine an entirely different kind of life. Lately, she’s been more prone to wrangling up a fight with Hook instead, which often leads her to this very moment, alone in her old room in her mother’s apartment again. But at least in her timeline she’d be able to call Regina and talk until sleep took her again.

Now, there are just the shadows on her ceiling and the shadows in her heart. She can so easily picture Regina’s face, the depth of her dark eyes, her warm smiling mouth.

The curtains flutter with the late evening wind. Her soft, downy sheets feel pleasantly cool against her thighs, and after a moment of deliberation, Emma squashes the vague prickling embarrassment with a huff and sets her bottle of wine firmly on the floor beside her bed. It teeters once and then settles.

Pulling the warm covers over her waist, Emma slides her pajama bottoms off, and drops them somewhere along the floor. Slipping her hand down her thighs, she huffs at how wet she is already, at just the mere thought of having sex with Regina.

With slow, firm circles, she works herself up to a hazy hum. A gentle warmth prickles in the base of her spine. Sighing, she presses the back of her head more firmly against the pillow and angles her legs out further.

With her eyes closed, she can imagine a little better the warm, soft lips that would slide down her neck, the puffs of air that would tickle against her breast, her stomach, her thighs. Her knees come up, and a feeble whimper rumbles in her throat. A red flush of warmth spreads across her skin. Just the thought of black hair and that dark red mouth of hers, that’s all she needs. Her lower back eases from the mattress. That’s all she needs.

***

“Did you do something to upset my Mom?”

“Uhm,” Wrinkling her mouth, Emma gently squeezes the tomato in her hand, and sensing a little too much softness, sets it down again, “More than usually you mean?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Henry weighs one of the meatier tomatoes in his tiny palm, “She’s just been acting weird. She doesn’t normally get so _upset_ after fighting with you. But I don’t know, these last two days she’s seemed awfully quiet.” he shrugs again, “Does this one look good?”

Tugging the tomato gently from her kid, Emma gives it a little squeeze, and then with a shrug she sets it down in their cart. She had also sensed the deathly quiet from the Mayor’s office, but she hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on it yet. Silence rarely was a good thing when it came to Regina, and with this version of her, it likely meant something deadly. But this scheming, brooding version of Regina was at least predictable, and can’t so easily reduce her to a trembling mess with a single look over her wineglass.

“I probably did,” Emma says lightly and moves to the freshly misted herbs bunched in piles, “Parsley is something your Mom uses a lot while cooking, right? Or is it basil. Probably both.”

“Never mind,” Henry grumbles, “I guess it doesn’t matter.”

At age ten, her kid has perfected a tone of tragic, empathetic defeat, the manner of someone who has lost repeatedly any scrap of hope. It pierces Emma’s heart as surely as a knife.

“Ah, kid. Come on. Of course it matters,” With one arm, Emma pulls her kid into her side, squeezing him gently, “I don’t want to make your Mom’s life any harder than it needs to be. But there will probably be some tension between us.” _Or a lot_ , she thinks, “It’s probably going to be rough for a while, being Mortal Enemies and all, but it won’t last forever.”

“Right.”

“I’m serious,” Emma rests her chin on Henry’s head, and gives him one more tender squeeze, “Once this is all over, we’ll be best friends.”

“Okay, whatever,” Henry sighs.

When Emma pulls away, she can see in his pink wrinkled face the teenager in the years to come who will begin to feel slightly embarrassed for everything his Moms do.

Laughing, she lets him go. 

“I _am_ serious, though,” Emma says, and decides at last on the parsley, “We will. We’re your parents. We might fight sometimes, but that doesn’t mean we don’t care about you or our family. We just need to get through this rough patch.”

“I said _okay_ ,” Henry groans, his cheeks still red. Emma laughs again and ruffles his hair just because she can. At sixteen, he is too old and too tall to have his hair ruffled.

Walking around the aisle, she spots the bundles of dried pasta just as she bumps into a passerby, topping their contents from a hand-held cart.

“Oh, shoot,” Kneeling hastily, Emma scoops up a bag of lentils, a bundle of carrots, and one big red onion. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking.”

When she stands, there is Katherine. Still alive, still well.

“Sheriff,” Katherine nods cordially, and presents her cart for the return of her items. Catching sight of Henry, the corners of her eyes crinkle, though it does not warm her expression “How are you doing, young man?” she asks seriously, the same cordial tone one would speak to an adult.

“I’m good,” Henry chirps, and then seeming to understand that an adult conversation would be continuing beyond his contribution, he looks for a distraction, “I’ll get the Rocky Road.”

Nodding, Emma catches the purse of dislike in the corner of Katherine’s mouth. The first time around, she’d been oblivious to the allegiances sworn to Regina. There had been so few of them.

Looking over Katherine now, she seems good. Happy, or at least happy enough. Her eyes aren’t rheumy or skittish, not at all the woman who has just discovered her husband has been cheating on her.

Out the window, black, heavy storm clouds gather around the tops of buildings. Isn’t it nearly winter? Hadn’t Katherine been missing already, by this time?

“Well, I ought to—”

“So how have you been?” Emma quickly interrupts.

Katherine purses her lips but resettles her hands against her cart. “I’m alright. Thank you for asking.”

“Yeah. That’s good. Good,” she tries to recall what little she knows of Katherine, but there has always been a distance between them that made any conversation unavailing beyond the pleasantries, not even after the curse. “Uh, so did you ever apply for that… school thing? Up in Boston, I think?”

“Hm?” Katherine’s brow folded. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh. Sorry, I thought you wanted to get …” Did she want to be a lawyer? Or a doctor? Shit. “A credential.” she finishes vaguely, but at the blank expression on Katherine’s face, she pushes onward. “So uh… how’s David?”

“David is doing fine,” she answers, without even a flicker of insecurity, “He’s struggling to adapt without his memories, but we’re doing alright. Thank you for asking. Now,” with a cool smile, she draws back from Emma, “You’ll have to excuse me, I’m in a bit of a rush.”

As Katherine disappears around the aisle, Emma lets out a long, deep groan.

“What the hell,” she grumbles, and takes out her notepad again.

_ Notes: November 1st _

  * _It’s almost winter, and Katherine isn’t even thinking of leaving town_
  * _David and Mary Margaret are still having an affair_
  * _How did Katherine figure out the affair the first time???_



With a sigh, she clicks her pen and puts it back in her shirt pocket. She wants to believe that these little changes will amount to nothing in the end, like taking a slightly longer scenic route to the destination. But the curse broke somewhere in the middle of October, and now, the trees have lost their leaves, and frost must be scraped off the windshields in the morning, and yet they are not even approaching the more caustic stages of the curse. Somewhere, there is a blackhole sucking away important changes.

Originally, Katherine had been exposed to the affair, not told, as Mary Margaret had come to believe. She still recalls walking in to find her roommate crying on the bed, and though she had not yet begun to believe the curse or the strings of love between them, she felt for the first time the terrifying helplessness that children must feel when hearing their mothers cry. The sound of those little peeps, those teary hiccups defeated her, made her break yet another rule on keeping her distance.

After the affair, Mary Margaret had sulked away the last remaining days of the curse, until at least she was framed for murder. Yet, here Katherine is, still completely ignorant. What happened the first time? How did she find out? _Someone_ must have told her.

Just then, there’s the familiar buzz of presence along the back of her neck. The silent sensation of being watched from afar. The aisles around her are mostly empty, however, and the few people around are absentminded, drifting in their own streams of thought.

Then, she sees her. Outside the grocery store, a woman about the same height as Regina stands alone, watching her. Although the woman is blurred almost entirely by the large panel windows blanketed by late-morning frost, some blind, sightless place in Emma knows that it is Regina outside, that it is Emma who has stopped her in the middle of the sidewalk, in the middle of whatever chores or responsibilities that she no doubt planned to get done that day. That it is Emma who has somehow put Regina’s whole scheme on pause. 

She can guess what happened. Initially, the curse cracked like a glass bowl, with a thousand little fissures that preoccupied Regina entirely and spread her single-minded attention to all of its minor leaks, an impossible break to fix, and was only made worse by her meddling. But now, Regina is stuck, as if suspended, on a single obsession. 

Emma.

Of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed <3


	3. part three

A few cold days pass. Emma honestly isn't sure what part of the timeline they should be crossing at this point. Would Mary Margaret be cowering in the eyes of everyone around her, shrinking from whispered gossip, or would she be in a cell at this point? What pushed the first domino? Where did it all go wrong?

Just then, Mary Margaret sighs her dreamy little sigh over coffee. Emma looks up to see her rereading David's texts like a lovesick teenager, which would embarrass Emma if she had not so often done the same thing when it came to Regina's texts. 

Biting into her toast, Emma flips open her notebook and dates on the top _November 4th._ She writes down: _expose the affair_

"Ooh, are you journaling?" Mary Margaret sits up a little straighter to beam over the top of the couch. 

Emma quickly covers the entry with an arm, though it'd be impossible to read from where her mother sits.

"Uh. Yeah," Emma quickly shoves the rest of her toast into her mouth. "Shoot I'm late -- gotta go."

***

"Ms. Swan." 

Regina's smooth velvety voice stops Emma almost immediately in her tracks. There, stuck, she curses herself . Her past self would have had no trouble walking through the soft trap that is Regina's voice as effortlessly as if it were merely a voice -- nothing more. Now, though, she waits with a doomed sort of helplessness like a buffalo stuck in quicksand, waiting for the hyenas to approach. 

It takes a few beats, but by the time Regina arrives at her side, Emma can see the hidden pleasure in the corner of her mouth though her face is dangerously cool. 

"Madame Mayor," Emma grins easily and tries to loosen her shoulders, sliding her hands into her pockets. At least this way she does not seem as physically trapped as a moth in a web. "You haven't come to maul me for late paperwork have you?"

Regina appraises her quickly, dryly, then arches her eyebrow. "You turned everything in on time this month, Sheriff." The corner of her mouth hikes up. "But you know that. Are you seeking a pat on the head, dear?"

Emma's mouth slides into a real smile. "I'd never presume you'd give me one so easily."

"Hm," Regina's mouth curves briefly. Beneath those dark lashes, Emma can see through the cool ice in her eyes the gleam of real interest -- a more dangerous trap than her voice.

Emma quickly steps way from the orbit of her gravity.

"Anyway" Emma nods to the sidewalk. She can feel herself nervously readjusting her collar against her neck though it hasn't shifted an inch. "I've really got to get going -- do you actually have anything to tell me or did you just wanna have a chat?"

Regina's eyes slide back to cool dangerous disinterest. "Just a reminder that I've scheduled your performance review for this upcoming month."

"Cool," Emma shuffles further from Regina's space, the smell of her perfume, the depth of those eyes. "An email might have done the trick but I appreciate the effort Madame Mayor," she huffs, "Though no doubt you could have been doing _something_ more useful."

A spark of real danger enters Regina's eyes. "Be careful with that tongue of yours, dear."

"Will do." Emma says and continues on her way. 

***

"Have you guys actually gone on a date?" Emma asks as she's scribbling down notes. An endless lists of possibilities that fall over itself -- _tell Katherine personally, take a picture of Mary Margaret and David send it? No, but then you'd be betraying Mary Margaret and she wouldn't trust you the same way. What did Regina do to get this all going?_ "Like a real one, at a restaurant or something other than the loft or a hotel room?"

Over the phone, Mary Margaret makes a quiet hurt noise. "Emma, we can't. You know that."

"Right," she sighs, and straightens up. "But wouldn't it be nice to be a little more public? You guys are so secretive, that can't be -- you know, a great way to start a relationship."

There's a longer pause, and then a lower quieter sound like the sound of a puppy being kicked. Hard. Emma winces. 

"Do you really think that?"

God. Emma blows out a breath. She tries to imagine what Regina would say -- but in reality if Regina were in this situation, she'd probably only laugh in the face of any visible signs of vulnerability. Emma sighs and rubs her head. 

"No," Emma crumples in like a fresh croissant. "Of course not. You guys are great together. I just worry about this secret --"

"Oh, I do too," Mary Margaret assures quickly, "And I've told David that he has to tell Katherine. He said he will."

Emma blows a strand of hair out of her face and looks down at her notes.

"Great." Emma sighs gruffly. "Yeah. I'm sure that'll work out perfectly."

A long hopeful sigh over the phone makes Emma wince and put the phone away from her ear. Great. So _that_ route is out.

Plan B it is.

***

"Mary Margaret is having an affair with Katherine's husband."

Regina's face immediately puckers with disgust as if Emma had just told her that her roommate was gleefully eating small children for breakfast every morning.

"Ms. Swan," Regina's upper lip curls over teeth before she touches a hand to her forehead to rub away the image in her mind. "Why in the world would you tell me this?"

Emma lets out a long breath of air. She feels like some large inflated balloon inside her chest has just been popped. 

"Well," Emma spreads her hands helplessly. "You're...the mayor, and you are kind of Katherine's friend now, so I thought ..."

Regina gives her a dark little look over the top of the report she is holding before she merely rolls her eyes and settles her attention back onto the paper in front of her. 

Emma can't help the faint sputter of a laugh that leaves her.

"Really?" she exclaims. "That's it? You're not going to do anything?"

There's a short, abrupt sigh. "Ms. Swan," Regina's dark eyes dart up quickly from the page to pierce through Emma's chest. "Just because I am the Mayor doesn't mean I have to be informed by all the disgusting moral descensions my townspeople engage in."

My god. She didn't think instigating villainy in Regina would be so hard. "But Regina--"

Regina's eyes shoot up with surprise and immediately flush Emma's cheeks. 

"Madame Mayor," she sputters, "I mean, of all people who I thought would care about this --?"

"You thought of me?" Regina's little frown between her eyebrows would be absolutely adorable if it weren't currently the bane to the existence of Emma's whole future. She makes a little scoffing sound, and draws her eyes quickly up and down the line of Emma's body again. "Really -- you think I care about what that spineless mouse of a woman gets into? She'll eat her own heart soon enough."

Emma rubs her forehead angrily because -- yes -- _yes_ , that will happen. If Regina hadn't meddled -- if Katherine hadn't been exposed to the affair, broken things off with David, she never would have a reason to leave Storybrooke, David wouldn't have had the spine to leave on his own, and Mary Margaret would have been left only with a broken heart and nothing more. It all suddenly works out perfectly in Regina's favor -- except.

"When we first met, you had a close eye in everyone’s business,” Emma says gruffly. “Now suddenly you don’t want to know. What reason could you possibly have for holding off on this?”

"Disinterest," Regina answers smoothly, and turns a page.

Emma hesitates. She looks at Regina in the cool light of the morning. It slants over her desk, over her shoulders, makes everything look warm and sparkling. Her hair, normally black, looks silky and surprisingly brown.

"What does capture your interest, these days?" Emma asks.

Regina's eyes drift silently upward. She meets Emma's eye coolly, and then, suddenly, with a small wordless curve of her mouth, as if Emma had just made a private joke with her, acknowledged some kind of secret between them, she hums pleasantly and returns to her paperwork. Without a word. 

***

Plan C it is. It's her worst plan yet, but something had to be done. Emma probably could have come up with a better plan if she thought longer about it, but time has started to seem oddly like one of those things that will be running out on her soon enough.

Emma presses her thumb against the walkie, “Alright, kid. You ready?”

A beat passes. Then, static overlays the air, and Henry murmurs: _I still think this is a bad idea._ _Over._

“Oh, agreed. You sure you can convince your Mom to pick you up early? Even without a fever?”

_Of course. Mom always picks me up, even if I’m just feeling bad. Over._

“Oh. Well, okay,” She clears her throat, strangling the age-old, little kid envy she had for Henry’s childhood, “Then wish me luck.” to which Henry responds empathetically with: _Good luck. Over._

Strapping the walkie back onto her hip, Emma watches a colossal rain cloud travel slowly across the Mayor’s front square window. She would have preferred to simply stay out of Regina’s way, but clearly something had to be done. And when it comes to meddling with evil schemes, Regina’s office was always the best place to start. It is the sanctum sanctorum, the vault where the best stash is always kept.

Time passes. It doesn’t feel very long. She watches a slim shadow pass across the Mayor’s window twice before her walkie vibrates against her hip again.

_It’s a go. Over._

A moment later, Regina is hurriedly walking down the wet stairs towards her car parked in front as she slips on a dark raincoat. When the red flush of Regina’s taillights disappears fully around the corner, Emma finally permits herself to leave the safety of her car. If everything goes right, she’ll have only twenty minutes to break into Regina’s office, depending on how well Henry can feign his sickness.

Tiana – she forgets her cursed name, is at her secretarial post when she spots Emma’s quick approach up the stairs. Immediately, her face wavers with apprehension.

“Ms. Swan, you know I can’t let you in there when the Mayor is gone--”

“I’ll just be a minute,” she slips around the chairs set up as waiting room, “Promise, she won’t even notice I’m here.”

“Ms. Swan, please!” but Emma is already slipping inside.

With the doors closed, Regina’s office holds the same authoritative hush of a library, compelling those who enter to gently lower their voice. The only sounds are of soft incidental foot traffic below, and the brittle tap of leaves against the window.

On the far wall, rows of important-looking books line the shelves. A mirror reflects back the slightly bisected image of the room and window. On Regina’s desk, a lunar vase full of flowers. Little about this office will change throughout the years, except for the desk; its sleek black surface will gradually become cluttered with tokens of their family. Beach day and picnic pictures, souvenirs from different trips, that one rock Henry found once, the one that looks like a toad.

With a fond sigh, Emma crosses the room to kneel down beside the small black safe behind Regina’s desk. The lock is still the same basic keypad, with a six-number passcode.

After a beat of hesitation, Emma enters in the date of the curse, incidentally her own birthday, which has remained as Regina’s code for most things throughout the years, despite it becoming rather obvious. After two-beats, the green light flashes its all-clear, and releases the silver handle from its lock.

Too easy, she thinks, smiling, and opens the door. Inside, there are three manila packages, all neatly tied with red string. The one on the bottom looks heftier, so she carefully slides it out from beneath the others and unties it swiftly.

Tilting the bag slightly, her heart kicks against her ribs as the weight of at least a hundred pictures slides onto her knees.

Which is what she was expecting. Hoping, even. But she hadn’t quite expected for them all to be…

“ _Seriously_ Regina _?_ You needed _all_ of these?” Emma groans, and pushes some of the prints off her lap onto the floor, spreading them out evenly to better assess the glossy terrain of snapshots, flipping over a few white-backed sides to reveal yet another picture of _Emma_.

All vary in location, although most seem to be taken from far-away positions. The few close-shot ones send a heated flush down her neck.

There she is at Granny’s, at the park, at the office, at the bench near the harbors, eating a sandwich.

“God,” Emma puffs with a laugh, feeling a squirmish glow of pleasure warm in her stomach.

Picking up one of the pictures, Emma tilts the glossy surface toward the cloudy light, finding herself staring back. It’s a close-up shot of her smiling, although most of the focus is blocked by the man she’s in conversation with, the focal point is her smile.

Oh, if only _her_ Regina were here. She’d tease her so bad.

“Oh, Regina.” Emma sighs fondly as she skims through the multitude of pictures, “You’re so obsessive.”

Flipping another photo, Emma’s thumbnail scrapes against the edge of a post-it note. It is written in Regina’s gorgeous handwriting, all as neatly detailed as her emails and reports.

Carefully pulling the note off, Emma gawks at the diligent handwriting, the information written concisely as if Regina thought herself to be a detective on a dangerous case.

Dated _October 20 th_ is scribbled in the corner

_ Emma Swan/Savior _

  * _Arrives now at work approximately 7:15._
  * _Takes lunch at 12:20 to 1:30, only ten minutes overtime now_
  * _Leaves 6pm, most days. Occasionally stays late. Latest: 3 hours overtime._
  * _She’s become suspiciously more competent at her job_
  * _Significant uptick of Curse/Evil Queen jokes_
  * _Does she know?_



Emma gingerly passes her thumb over the last bullet point, a spasm of tenderness drawing in her heart. In the last few words, there’s a slight change of writing, the letters becoming sloppily slanted at the end, a sign that Regina’s pen had glided with a quickness that could either mean she was rushed, or she had an overly anxious hand. The likeliness of the last welled in her heart.

Static fills the air. Henry’s voice scratches with its exaggerated whisper: _We’re heading back to the office. Over._

“Fuck,” she mutters, and quickly scrambles to get all the pictures off the floor, and in one gathered bunch in her hand. “Fuck-fuck-fuckfuckfuck.”

Sliding the pictures back into their manila package, she ties the red string hastily, cursing as it slips its hold on the small metal ring twice before she gets it down. Shoving it in the safe, she unties the next package and skins through it.

Pictures of the town, at its beginning, it seems. Identities, case files full for each Storybook resident. _Not_ what she needs.

Cursing, she ties it up again and takes out the last one.

At last, as she hastily pulls the string, she finds it. A picture of Mary Margaret and David, their faces intimately close to one another. Close enough to reveal to any passerby that these two people have either just kissed, or are about to a kiss, substantial evidence of an affair, she hopes.

She almost takes the picture with her. It was her plan to show Katherine herself, to ensure that things are pushed forward. But as she’s closing the safe, picture in hand, a cold hand of doubt closes around her stomach.

What if only Regina can show Katherine this evidence, and have it be remembered? Would Katherine believe her, if she showed her this, or would the curse sheath the truth in trickery, as it done for years?

There’s the sound of a car door slamming outside, then soft familiar voices. As Henry bounds up the front steps, his shoes reverberating against the concrete, Emma decides. She slides the picture beneath one of Regina’s work folders, as if simply left by mistake. Perhaps, if Regina finds it, she’ll be reminded of what she had intended to do originally, and things will fall back on track.

As the voices skitter up the walls, Emma neatly tucks the chair back into the desk and quickly shoots out of the door.

“Ms. Swan,” Tiana half-growls at her, “The Mayor is at the stairs, you’re going to make me lose my job!”

“Shoot,” Emma mutters, then, looking around, she quickly rounds the secretary desk and kneels down beside the chair.

“Ms. Swan!”

“Shh, please! I’m sorry, just _shh_ ,” she puts a finger to her lips, and puts as much feeling as she can into her sad, pleading eyes.

“Ugh, fine,” Tiana grumbles, and then straightens in her chair at the sound of approaching heels.

In the distance, she can hear Henry’s hammy voice as they climb the stairs, “Can I see the room you do all your meetings in? _Please_?”

Regina, clearly stunned by the performance, stutters, “Darling, you’ve seen that room at least a hundred times.”

“But I want to see the work you do.”

“Well, I’m happy you’re so interested, my love,” In her smooth velvety voice threads a watery brightness painfully full of hope. From over the desk, Emma can see the shape of their shadows climbing the walls, the stairwell drenched in afternoon sunlight. “Unfortunately, I still have lots of work to do in my office,” after a brief, tense pause, she continues, “But perhaps we can play a game after I get some work done, like we used to. I still have all of your favorites here.”

Oh, kid. _Please_ say yes.

“Uh. Okay, sure. I guess.”

As Regina climbs the last few stairs, a few rings of afternoon light touch her face, making visible the slow dim of hope in her face, closing her expression like blinds from the sun.

“Alright, dear,” With a sigh, Regina rests the tips of her fingers on the swell of Henry’s neck, gently steering him towards her office.

When the door closes, Emma tentatively stands, wincing slightly at the stiffness in her joints.

“You should leave,” Tiana answers, flatly. She drops a fine tipped pen in its silver holder, and taps her mouse, starting her computer again. “Whatever you did, she’s bound to notice soon.”

“I don’t think she’ll notice.”

Yet, just then, there is the faint creak of floorboards as the linoleum absorbs what seems to be a sudden stop of momentum.

By the time the Mayor’s door opens, Emma is already all the way down the stairs. She slows, standing beneath the soft web of blue-colored shadows that lay upon the white marble floor. Above her, the floorboards creak. There’s the soft sound of Tiana’s typing on the keyboard, and then their abrupt silence.

Though muffled by the distance, Emma can still clearly hear the sound of her own name in Regina’s voice.

_Was Ms. Swan here?_

Groaning, Emma slips out the door. She doesn’t bother to wait for Tiana’s undoubtably masterful performance. She knows it won’t matter. Regina shares the same clear-headed incisiveness of a bloodhound: once on a trail, she couldn’t be deterred by muddling distractions or excuses. Perhaps not all is lost, though. It was Regina’s plan in the first place to have Sydney follow Margaret and David, expose the affair, and torpedo their relationship. It still sounds like something that would appeal to this Regina. That must count for something. Regardless of Emma’s own involvement, Regina must realize the advantage she has over her sworn enemy. That must be enough.

***

Later that night, there’s a sharp knock at her door. The sound is firm and definitive, lobbed against their apartment door with the certainty of a stone.

Mary Margaret’s head pops up from behind the couch, a finger keeping her place on a page.

She looks at Emma, “Who could that be?”

“I’m not sure,” Emma says, and wipes a curl of hair away with the back of her wrist, her arms soaked to the elbows with soapy water. One thing to miss about her future is that her father truly loved to wash the dishes. She glares down at the soapy water which murkily reflects her own grim misery, “You think you can get it?”

She’s scrubbing the hollow side of a spoon when she hears Mary Margaret gasp. The electric fear in her mother’s voice zips up Emma’s spine, makes her go slack, and drop all that she’s holding. Both spoon and sponge disappear with hardly even a _plop_ , sinking into soapy water again.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, quickly rounding the corner, arms still soaked to the elbows as she comes to stand beside Mary Margaret, still in the entry way, her mouth agape.

Mary Margaret’s face has gone slack with shock. She is looking down at a picture in her hands, and though the hallway light is dim, shadowing the image in a murky grey, a leaden-like understanding is settling in Emma’s stomach with every step she takes. Stopping behind roommate’s shoulder, it settles like cement.

“Oh man,” Emma rubs , “That’s…”

“David and me! _Kissing_. God, someone is _following_ us. They’re…they’re stalking us,” Mary Margaret whispers, fearfully. “Wait – there’s a note.”

After a moment, her roommate runs her thumbnail beneath the corner of the picture where a bright red post-it note is attached. She glances at it only briefly before the flat of her brow crumples, and she turns to Emma with a look in her eyes that makes Emma’s heart go cold.

“It’s addressed to you,” Mary Margaret says, and though her voice is quiet, it comes out surprisingly even. Calm, almost.

As Emma takes the note, the moisture from her thumb smudges the corner and converges two words together, but even so, she’d recognize the handwriting anywhere. The smooth, fluid style, the way she curves her “S”s.

_Ms. Swan,_

_Since you worked so hard, you can keep it. I have plenty more._

“It’s Regina, isn’t it,” Mary Margaret’s voice is calm, worryingly calmly, “No one else calls you Ms. Swan. No one else would have _this_.”

“I…yeah, I guess.”

“Why does Regina have a picture of me and David,” For a single moment Mary Margaret betrays the anger beneath her voice, sharp now with accusation, “And why is it addressed to _you_?”

The stony look on her mother’s face makes her knees twinge with memory, remembering the hollow slap of her bare feet on cement, the ache in her joints, the years she spent running from a look like that.

“Um. I’m not sure.”

“ _Emma_.”

“What?” Emma exclaims, “I don’t.”

“Emma, I know you’re hiding something. You have that panicked, wide-eyed look of yours.”

With a sigh, Emma rubs her forehead.

“Fine. Look…” The weight of her voice doubles suddenly, water-logged with memories that either start or end with tears, and suddenly the difficult title of _Mom_ , though so rarely used, feels sharp in her throat, “I…might have been looking through Regina’s office, for something today. Something I could use against her. I found this stash of black mail on accident.”

There’s a long pause. The heater kicks up again. Outside, the wind whistles between the maple-brick buildings. 

“So you go rooting for black mail in Regina’s office, find _her_ stash of black mail, and I get _this_ on my door?” she intones coolly, “Is that how it all worked out?”

“I guess?”

Her roommate sighs. “I have to talk to David.”

“Oh, okay. Hey, maybe you can get him to confess to Katherine.”

The moment her words hit the air she knows it came out all wrong. Her tone is far too hopeful, far too eager to be sympathetic.

Emma cringes, whispers, “ _Sorry_.” But Mary Margaret only watches her like she is a stranger.

Finally, with a final shake of her head, Mary Margaret goes in search for her phone. Emma watches her go, nibbling anxiously at the raised edge of her thumbnail.

Maybe this is a good change. It is a slight shift in the right direction. She’s just idling a bit, taking the scenic route. That’s all.

***

Later that night, her phone vibrates unexpectedly. Grimacing up from a half sleep, Emma squints at the blue glow on the small desk beside her bed.

After a moment she groans and leans over, tilting the phone her direction.

On the screen, at the god awful hour of 1am, Regina texts her.

_Did you get my note?_

Emma snorts. Can she really not resist one chance to gloat?

Still, Emma types back. _I did. Thanks, Your Majesty_. _It truly ruined my evening._

She sends it and nearly lets the phone drop back on the desk before she feels it vibrate again. Only seconds later.

Squinting, Emma looks back. She scoffs, smiling a little.

_[1:01] Glad to hear it._

_Bitch._ She thinks. But her skin tickles pleasantly at the thought of Regina in bed, late at night, texting her. Thinking of _her_. Is she thinking of Emma now? Is that why she’s still awake? Is she in her own bed now, smiling now that small evil smile as she reads over the texts again, thinking of Emma.   
  


The warmth in Emma’s skin begins to build. With a faint huff, disgusted with herself, she slides a hand down her pants.

Whatever, Emma thinks. She can indulge. Everything will be fixed by morning.  
  


***

“So, let’s just go over it,” The corner of Emma’s mouth wrinkles with residual regret for having forgotten her sunglasses on her desk this morning as she squints through the refracted brightness of late autumn light bouncing off the gravel and car windshields, “So, Archie, let’s start with you. Mind going over your side of things?”

“Sure, of course,” Archie clears his throat, and offers an embarrassed smile for being blameless, for coming out clearly in the right.

It really didn’t need to be said. The front of David’s murky green truck is pleated like silky fabric, its damage matching the damage done to Archie’s little Honda with the same cozy, irrefutable likeness as two teeth in a zipper. David has taken up the calm, defeated demeanor of a captive, awaiting his fate on a nearby stoop with an icepack pressed to his left shoulder.

“So,” Emma taps her pen against her blank report, “What happened first?”

“Right,” Archie folds his arms, “Well. I was approaching this intersection here and was about twenty feet away or so when the light turned yellow. If I had picked up my speed a little, I would have likely cleared the intersection in the yellow, but I decided to slow down. That’s when I noticed David approaching from behind, and…”

“And I slammed into him,” David finishes, and sighs, “I’m sorry Archie, my head was somewhere else.”

“Oh, that’s alright,” Archie brightens readily, “It’s hardly any trouble. And you’ve had a lot going on.”

David nods, but his face doesn’t release any of its tension. With a heavy sighs, he switches his hold on his icepack. 

“Right,” Emma adds after a beat, “Well, frankly, this looks like a pretty clean and simple collision, as collisions go. No property damage, and little injury, so there’s really no need for my report as long as David’s got insurance,” With a glance toward David, she sighs, noting his blank, helpless expression, “Well, it’ll be a quick report, anyway.”

After a beat, reviewing her report again, Emma casts a tentative glance towards her father. He looks glumly defeated like a dog left outside, coming slowly to the realization that his family has left without him.

Emma walks over.

“Hey,” Emma taps her clipboard against her hip, “You alright?”

“I’m a little rattled.” David admits, and looks up at her. He rubs his red palms together, “Mary Margaret told me what was left outside your door.”

“Ah. Yeah.”

“I know I’m in the wrong, here. I should have come out clean to Katherine on my own. But I never would have expected…” he shakes his head incredulously, as if his whole world-view rested solidly on the idea that Regina was a good, kind leader, incapable of hatred, and now, with tremors of doubt, everything was open for reassessment, “I don’t know the Mayor very well, or at least, not anymore, but I never thought she was capable of this. To blackmail Mary Margaret, for no apparent reason but to scare her.”

“Well,” Emma frowns down at David, “She and Katherine are friends, you know. I’m sure she’s doing it out of a misguided attempt to protect her.”

Her father blinks up at her, and then squints from the November light. The sun is approaching from behind her shoulders, glinting off metal and gravel, likely putting her in shadow. But he goes on staring at her without seeing.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen them talk.” He says, at last. He speaks softly, almost absentmindedly, as if he had spoken without meaning to; his attention is on something else, a bigger issue, more troubling and hiding just beneath this single truth.

There is something about his expression that sets off a faint buzz in Emma’s joints, like fuzzy radio transmissions warning the approach of an unsafe storm. There is danger here, gathering into what seems to be a growing distrust of the Mayor.

The curse is weakening, but it’s happening all wrong. Hadn’t people remembered their lives first? Hadn’t it started with their memories? She thought that it would be easy enough to trigger those memories again, but now it seems that everything is falling around Regina. What else might change?

With a heaviness on her heart, Emma takes a step back, “Sorry David, I, uh, actually should ask Archie a few more questions.”

Walking out from the shade, Emma makes her way to Archie, whose soft friendly face is squinted wearily by the windy sunshine.

“How’s he doing?”

“Uninsured, and very confused on what that means,” When Archie’s face gathers together in a knot of sympathy, Emma promptly drops the thread of conversation, skipping her hand over her belt and jeans for her notepad instead, “Anyway, Archie, if you’ve any good advice right now. Do you have a minute?”

Immediately, Archie’s face broadens into a kind smile. “Of course, Emma. I’m happy to be of any help.”

“Eh, right. So, being a therapist,” she waves her hand vaguely, “Is there any, you know, advice you would recommend for people who are kind of ‘stuck’ in the past?”

Archie doesn’t even blink at the question. In fact his shoulders seem to straighten a little, and he pushes his glasses eagerly, a professional quirk of his when he has properly corralled a patient towards an intended conversation. 

“Why do you say you’re stuck in the past?”

“Oh,” Emma coughs. “Not me. A friend.”

Kindness crinkles Archie’s eyes. “Of course. What makes you think your friend is stuck in the past?”

Emma grimaces, “Well. It’s just — they’re having a hard time moving on and being happy in their present.”

“Ah,” Archie nods, “I see. And they’re dwelling on old memories, sort of ‘reliving the past’ to escape unhappiness in their present?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Well, these memories must hold a great deal of importance to them.”

“Yeah.”

Archie gives her a carefully long look, one of his more subtle expressions, when he’s trying to hide the fact that he’s psychoanalyzing.

Finally, he smiles. “I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to dwell on old memories,” Archie says, and readjusts his glasses. “Our pasts are stories that help us understand ourselves. Some memories stick out more than others, and it’s these memories that can inform us on what we really feel about our current lives, about what we long for or what we fear. If you feel ‘stuck’ in your past, then there may be something about your life right now that feels incomplete. Or maybe these memories distress or confuse you. It might be helpful to sit with these old memories and understand what makes them so compelling to you.”

“To my friend,” Emma weakly corrects.

“Your friend,” Archie amends.

“Right,” Emma drawls slowly. Her pen remains unmoved on blank paper, “So by ‘sit’ you mean…?”

Archie’s eyes crinkle kindly. “Reflect on your past. Our brains are complex. They emphasize memories that are important to us but don’t always let us work through why they’re important. Something as simple as writing down our memories can help us work out how we feel about them. Or talk about them with a friend. I’m always available for a chat as well.”

“Ah,” Emma corners her mouth uncomfortably, “I see.”

She pauses a moment, then reluctantly writes under _Notes: November 7th_

  * _Learn to talk about this shit_



“If you want to set up an appointment sometime...”

“Oh. No,” she laughs, “No, I’m good, right now. Thank you.”

Thankfully, before Archie can respond, her phone goes off.

“Oops, probably important,” Quickly, turning her body a half quarter, she slips her phone, and brings the receptor to her ear with frowning caution, “Madam Mayor, what a surprise.”

“Sheriff,” Regina still punctures the air with her name, yet despite the clipped sound to it, there is a change to her voice. Wane, almost. Diminished. “I’ve been told that the Toll bridge was vandalized. I’ll need you to check it out for me.”

Emma blinks. Regina is never straight to the point in any of their conversations.

“The bridge?” She echoes, and struggles to gather up the original version of that bride to her mind, but she cannot recall anything but the heavily vandalized bridge of their future, the yellow and blue graffiti, the cartoonish drawings that doddle along old mossy bricks, it’s disorderly beauty extending eternally into her past, “Doesn’t that thing get drawn on like every week?” 

Now that she thinks about it, Regina had asked for her help the first time the bridge was vandalized too, but it had occurred well beyond the curse, and fell swiftly below all of the other urgencies, and so the bridge was permitted to exist in this new state without consequence. Regina was forced to suffer it good-naturedly, the way a rancher might suffer through the unpredictability of rain. The kids tended to add something every week, and though Regina kept tract silently, it’s been a while since Emma’s been asked to go down there to do anything beyond scrub out the obscenities.

“It hasn’t been vandalized in all the years I’ve been here,” Regina answers waspishly, expressing clearly without words that whatever tenderness she once felt for Emma has been reinterred entirely beneath a sharp edge of hate. “Check it out. Clean it up if it is vandalized. And then report back.”

“Cleaning town property isn’t in my job description, Madam Mayor,” Emma roughens her voice over the cool silence in her heart, and frowns down at her watch, “Look, I’ve got a lot on my plate today, and it’s a bridge. Even if I clean it up, the kids will just paint it over again. I’ll check it out when I have time, and make a report, but that’s it.”

There’s a slight pause. In the quiet, Emma can hear Regina address another person in the room likely excusing whatever guest waits in her office. When she speaks again, her voice sounds thin and hollow against her ear, buffered due to the close proximity of her mouth to the transmitter. Emma bites the inside of her lip to keep from advising Regina to hold the phone away, and instead repositions the phone as close as she can as she focuses all her attention on the sharp rise and fall of the voice on the other side.

“Let me—be cl—, Ms. Swan. You’re going to go over there, get a scrub or a power wash, if need be, and make sur— that that bridge looks exactl— as it has _all_ the years I’ve been here.”

Emma sighs and closes her eyes. At least all this aggression makes things easier between them. There’s no watery brightness in her heart now, no softness or sweetness to distract from what needs to be done.

Emma squints at her report, and huffs, “I’m too busy right now. Get one of your heartless henchmen do it if it’s so urgent.” She promptly hangs up to keep from softening the blow with an apology. Anger was good between them. It slid between them, made any friendliness impossible to sustain.

Still she may sigh a little too heavy to seem unaffected for Archie kindly clears his throat and brings her back up to the cool blustery present.

“A new quest from the Queen?” Archie offers only a sympathetic smile, which falters at the sudden intensity in Emma’s attention.

“What?” She asks sharply.

“Sorry.” Archie blinks, maintains a weak smile, “Only a joke. The Mayor can be a little rough can’t she?”

“Yeah, well she’s got a lot on her plate, doesn’t she?” Emma shoves her phone into her back pocket irritably, “It’s not all her fault.”

A protectiveness must enter her expression, for Archie’s expression ripples with surprise.

“Of course,” Archie answers amicably enough, but already she can sense the quiet reassessment behind his glasses, this small minor moment adding to the expansive guesswork in his head. Changing who knows what about the future.

“Great,” she sighs, and rubs her temples, “Well. I’ll get this report written up.”

She passes a few hours at the station, filing paperwork, checking emails, re-organizing the filing system. She even waters the two spider plants that dangle along the side windows of her office, the ones she forgot about originally and let die two weeks into her new job as Sheriff. But still, by 3pm Emma is slumped in her office chair, thinking about how anxious Regina must feel right now, to know that her curses’ dreamy, slate-grey consistency is rippling away, and will never settle again.

With a sigh, Emma grabs a bucket and a sponge and throws it in the trunk of her patrol car. Twenty minutes later, she is piloting her car off the main road to the thinner, weedy dirt road that will lead her to the Toll bridge.

She stops when she sees it.

There, on the mossy bridge, once featureless as a pebble, is a message for her in slanting, laborious handwriting, drawn in red paint:

_KILL THE QUEEN! BREAK THE CURSE_

She sits there in the cool shade of the trees, staring blankly. She doesn’t know how long. Long enough for the light to shift into a different shade, now bright and warm as honey, beaming directly onto her face through her window. When she can move, she pulls out her journal, and writes at last: _I’m in the Butterfly Affect._

Then, sliding out of her car, she hauls open her trunk and pulls out her bucket and sponge. The river water is ice-cold, and though she works steadily, it takes more than an hour for the stains to lift from the grey-sleet colored stones, and by that time her hands are numb and scalded red. She scrubs until she can be sure that the stones are clear of even the memory of the words, so that by the time she stumbles to her car she can be assured that the only remains of the threat are in the soreness of her wrists and forearms.

***

Though it is late in the evening, Emma cannot make herself leave the office. On her desk is her open journal, which she has spent the last two hours flipping through with the same hollow insecure feeling as a kid before a big test, realizing too late that she took note of all the wrong things, focused only on the details, and now could barely grasp the larger, more abstract ideas that these notes were meant to shape.

Nothing she has written down seems very important. There are a few notes about the changes she’s made, but mostly the pages read like journal entries. (October 18h: _Don’t forget how much you like mornings._ October 22nd: _I think Regina actually likes spending time with me. She never asks me to leave her office._ October 28th _: Just finished watching another movie with Mary Margaret. It was really nice. Why did we stop doing this? I’ll never understand._ November 2nd _: Maybe I should do something to show that I still care about Regina, even if we’re not hanging out. Like flowers or one of those jars of spiced plums that she loves. That always works._ November 3rd: _it didn’t work)._ That one doodle of Regina with vampire teeth and heart eyes.

Beyond Regina, Emma can list most of the things that have changed. She can guess where it all began to go wrong. Correlating these two, she can understand that these new memories with Regina had created a scarcity amongst the townspeople, made a new tension where there was not. But what does it matter? What does _knowing_ change? _Knowing_ won’t keep Regina safe. It won’t keep their future safe.

Rubbing her head, Emma goes through her new timeline again. She ticks her thumb across the pages, stares helplessly.

In the station, the only measure for time came from the lights outside her window. She arrives when the sun casts soft blue rings along the walls of her office and leaves when everything turns the color of a rose, but should she stay past the sun, the office loses its steady measure and allows time to quicken or slow as need be, becoming nearly incalculable beneath the warm consistency of the lamp light. 

The heater kicks on above her head. The silence hums, and soon the office becomes warm, making even the hard back of Emma’s chair feel cushioned with a cozy sleepiness. Sighing, Emma rests her elbows on the desk, rubs away the heaviness with the heel of her palms.

 _Let me go back_ , she thinks, tiredly, _It’s not worth it_.

In the soft, yellowish warmth of her office, as Emma blinks down at the pages of her journal, she sinks into a deep sleep. She isn’t aware of it happening -- she’d been awake one moment, and then asleep the next, submerged powerfully in seconds, the way the ocean swallows sinking ships beneath its cool glassy surface. 

When she wakes again, the room is still dim, almost completely dark except for the single determined lamp in the corner. Little else has changed.

Except Regina is now there.

Emma feels her presence in slow degrees, breathing in the cedar-scent of her perfume, and then the warmth of her proximity. Regina is sitting on the edge of Emma’s desk, right beside her chair, the way she always does when she catches Emma staying late at work, far later than she should. And just like always, Regina has a book or journal of some kind in her hands to keep her occupied for an undetermined set of time, although it has never taken more than an hour to wear down Emma’s doggedness until at last she gives in, and packs up to go home.

A warm sleepy relief fills Emma’s chest. For a moment, it seems possible that she’s been returned to her future – that all she needed to do was simply _wish_ herself back.

Overwhelmed with relief, Emma slides her arms beneath Regina’s knees, and lays her head in her best friend’s lap, just as she did when Snow first told her about her new baby, and she’d woken up dazedly to the brightness of her desk lamp, Regina sitting calmly right beside her just as she is now.

“You won’t believe the dream I had.” Emma murmurs sleepily into a soft warm thigh, and gently squeezes Regina’s legs.

It takes another frozen silent moment for Emma to recognize how _stiff_ Regina feels. The muscles in her calves are tense; her body radiates the silence in the room. 

_Oh no._ Emma thinks, and closes her eyes tighter. _She’s not back_.

A beat of unbearable silence passes.

Then, softly, a hand slides into Emma’s hair. 

“I think you’re still dreaming, dear.” Regina uses a voice as soft and velvety as a dream, and lightly trails her fingers through Emma’s long, blonde hair.

“Okay,” Emma mumbles, softly. She’ll go along with anything if it means she can keep her head in Regina’s lap. It seems possible that she can lay her head down and pretend nothing much will change, that this Regina might love her like she used to, that nothing could truly disrupt the love they have for each other, even if it hasn’t happened yet.

Regina quietly puts down what she’d been reading before. Emma’s journal – she recognizes it now, it’s sleek black cover, its metal spiral. Of course.

Yet, as Regina slides her other hand into Emma’s hair, she cannot seem to scrape up any real worry in her heart. She might not have referred to the curse out-right. Maybe she had. It doesn’t seem to matter. Regina gently strokes through her hair and settles more firmly against the desk. She wraps a strand of Emma’s hair around her finger and slides it behind Emma’s ear. Her hand feels soft and soothing. Emma closes her eyes and listens to the quiet boom of Regina’s heart against her ear.

Sighing tremulously, Emma tightens her grip around Regina’s legs, “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Shh,” Regina whispers softly, “Just dream.”

***

The bridge becomes a new stop in her patrols. She drives there first in the mornings, before the morning light can fully touch the fresh snow, and then again later at night, when everything is dark and the forest thrums with a nocturnal life so vibrant the air feels almost alive. By varying the time of her routine checks, she has narrowed down a general window of opportunity where the messages could be written between the hours of 1am to 4am. If the message hasn’t been written by 12am, she will find a new one by the time she takes her morning run, before the sun can pick out the shadows of trees.

Yet, the days she stands watch, drinking coffee until late morning, nobody comes.

So. Someone clearly has an eye on her.

By the end of the week, Emma has installed a small functioning surveillance camera on one of the low awning tree branches, but the technology in the town is so outrageously outdated that even with a video she can do nothing but try to pick out the grey-blur figure from the greater darkness of the trees and riverbed. She’d have to leave town to get a surveillance camera, but she’d begun to fear what her disappearance would do to the town. To Regina.

Since that evening in her office, Regina has done very little to contact Emma. She hasn’t even demanded that Emma keep a close eye on the bridge, though she is clearly aware of the cycle of vandalism and its removal. Emma has tried to broach the subject again, but Regina has maintained a cool distance, and now slips with water-like ease from any contact with her, from rooms, from conversations, and even avoids eye-contact; it seems she can even predict when Emma will stop by her office, for she has a habit of disappearing into thin-air. 

Once, Emma had even come to a meeting a half-hour earlier than she would have normally and found herself at last in a room alone with Regina. She’d been able to sit in the conference room alone with Regina for a few minutes as she prepped quietly for her presentation. But the moment Regina looked up and found Emma, alone with her in a conference room, she jolted like a newborn calf on unsteady legs and swiftly left the room with a half-mumbled excuse about something she left in the office. She had come back only when the room was half-full and didn’t meet Emma’s eyes again.

Emma can’t be certain why, but if she had to guess, she thinks it might be because that moment in her office that night had lasted a little too long to be dismissed totally as a dream. Regina had sat there stroking Emma’s hair until she felt certain that Emma had completely nodded off again, which had taken her at least forty minutes, though Emma hadn’t kept track of time and she doubts Regina had either. Regina had sat there too long and touched Emma so softly, it could not easily be brushed off as a calculating maneuver.

Then there’s the fact that Regina read her journal. Emma had reviewed her notebook again the next morning to see if she had given herself away on any dangerous subjects like the curse or time travel. Thankfully, she never referenced the curse outright, other than to record a small joke she hoped to make in the future, and while there were a few sketchy entries about a different version of reality, she only vaguely references what should have happened. While Regina may be the smartest person she knows, Emma doubts a few scattered entries about Katherine and thievery suspects would be enough to have Regina suspicious of her entire reality.

What sends a scour of embarrassment down Emma’s neck are the countless pages that sound a little too much like a dairy entry. About her day, about her life, about _Regina_. Why she misses Mary Margaret so much. What she hopes to have with Regina one day. And that one doodle, especially – had she really needed to put _heart eyes_ on it?

If Regina isn’t avoiding her out of shared awkwardness for what happened in the office that night, she can guess what the other reason might be.

With a sigh, Emma flips her folder closed, and stands up from her chair. She’s got to stop dwelling on this shit. She’s got a vandalizer to catch.

That night, Emma decides to hunker down on her position by the bridge. In the warmth of her car, she watches the sky gradually deepen into a deep indigo and strokes of greater darkness, splattered with glittery brightness. She sips coffee and leans her forehead against the cool glass to watch the shadows of bats zip over the dark sky.

It’s well into the night when Emma hears a branch snap. Quickly, she leans over to kill the engine, and waits in the new silence for the direction of movement.

Through the dark of her windshield, a slim shadow passes between the trees.

“Oh no you don’t,” she mutters, and slips out of her car. She leaves her door open so that the sound of it shutting doesn’t alarm her suspect.

Treading carefully through the clumps of soggy grass and snow, Emma quietly follows behind the figure, who stops suddenly at the edge of the riverbank. They stand there for a long moment in a peculiar stand-still, as if they were waiting for the arrival of someone else.

Emma puts a hand on her flashlight, then hesitates, following the familiar shape of the figure’s shoulders.

In that moment, the figure glances behind them and startles them both with a short scream.

When an elbow jolts towards her face, Emma moves on instinct, grasping the wrist and twisting it around the stranger’s back. With a yelp, the stranger aims another elbow to Emma’s gut, unbalancing them both. There’s a short fall, another loud scream, and then a short clumsy wrestle in the wet ground as Emma tries to clamber on top of the wriggling body, ducking her head to block the slaps of the stranger’s palm against her shoulder. She’d been struggling to look into the stranger’s face, nearly indistinguishable in the dark, that she doesn’t notice the slip of a shoulder and the winding up of a very good back hand that makes Emma’s ears ring.

Dizzied by the blow, groaning, Emma’s knee slips deeper in the mud. As the hand reels back for another strike, Emma ensnares it by the wrist and pushes it firmly into the frozen grass. 

“Got you,” Emma pants, and manages to pin down the other struggling arm with her knee. “Fuck, you hit hard. Can you please stop moving, now? I just want to talk.”

“ _No_!” a very loud, _very_ familiar voice flares out from the darkness, sounding now wild with rage.

Blinking dazedly, Emma frowns down at the woman.

“Regina?” she pants.

In the stunned silence that follows, Emma reaches back for her flashlight, struggles with the strap. At last, yanking it out, Emma flicks it on.

There, in the bright flare of light, she finds Regina Mills on her back in the half-frozen ground, visibly infuriated, even with her eyes squinted near-shut. There’s a stroke of mud across Regina’s cheek and what looks like a clump of frozen grass and leaves across her coat.

“Oh, fuck.” Emma nearly whimpers.

Regina’s scowl deepens and immediately Emma lowers the beam onto the ground. She shifts her weight onto her knees.

“Shoot, Regina. Sorry for uh, tackling you,” Wincing, she brushes a clump of wet leaves from Regina’s coat. “So. What are you doing here?”

It sounds so casual, as if she’d just bumped into Regina at the park or movie theater. She winces.

“What am _I_ doing here?” Though Regina’s voice is roughened by her scream, the anger is powerful enough to almost resemble her normal tone “This is my town, Sheriff. I’m here to find the person vandalizing my _fucking_ bridge. What in the world are _you_ doing here?”

“Um,” She stares blankly for a moment unable to think of a better response than: “Same reason?”

Regina merely purses her lips and exhales a short derisive breath through her nose. Irritably she waves for Emma to get off her. 

Hefting up onto her legs, Emma offers a hand to help Regina up from the ground, which gets immediately swatted away.

“Are you alright?” Emma asks, harried.

“I’m fine.” Regina snaps irritably, and slaps Emma’s hand away when she tries to brush down her wool coat, “Stop.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just – it’s dirty.”

“I _know_ it’s dirty! We just rolled around in mud. Of course it’s dirty!”

“Alright, alright, sorry,” Emma eases away from Regina’s intimidating glare, her ear still ringing from the last slap. She watches as Regina tries to brush down her coat herself, swiping ineffectually at the streaks of mud and grass. Though only a minute or two of silence passes, in that time the hopelessness of her task must dawn on Regina because when she looks up at Emma again, she huffs with a sort of resignation that has Emma shuffling a step closer. Regina huffs and looks off to the side, remaining perfectly still as Emma picks off the muddy leaves from the back of her shoulders and brushes off the wet tufts of frozen grass.

When all the leaves have been brushed off, Emma notices a few black strands of Regina’s hair stuck on a dried patch of dirt on her cheek. Carefully, Emma puts a slow hand close to Regina’s face, waiting in that half-way place between two decisions as Regina stiffens with the proximity of her hand. But after a moment, when Regina neither swipes at her or steps away, Emma gently thumbs the dirt off Regina’s cheek, and gently tucks the short curl of black hair behind Regina’s ear. Her fingers pass over the shell of Regina’s ear twice before the hair sticks.

“There,” Emma whispers.

The silence is stilted, slightly awkward. After a moment, Regina clears her throat and steps away, smoothing down the labels of her dark grey coat.

Suddenly, between them, sits the quiet intimacy of that night. The soft slow way Regina had stroked through her hair. The faint trace of her perfume in the air. The warmth of her body. The way Emma had hugged her legs and nuzzled into her thighs…

“So,” Emma rubs the back of her neck, “About that night –”

“You were dreaming,” Regina cuts in so quickly, it takes a moment before it dawns on her what she’s done. She winces. “Not that I would know.”

“Regina…”

“Whatever you think happened between us, didn’t. I just came in to check on you because I saw your light on, and you were half-asleep. You’re just mixing up memories with your dreams –”

“Yeah, okay,” Emma sighs exasperatedly, “Sure. Whatever. I wasn’t going to talk about that.”

A beat passes. Even in the dark, Emma can see the flush of color on her cheeks.

“Oh,” Regina says softly, and shifts a step away. “Okay. What were you going to say?”

“Just…about what you might have read—”

“Right.” Regina clears her throat and rolls her shoulders. “I – that wasn’t for me to read, I realize that. I thought it was just something you were working on. I didn’t know it was your _diary_.”

The mocking taunt at the end is severely weakened by how flushed Regina looks, but Emma cringes all the same. She can’t even deny it. What else could she possibly call it? She had scarcely used it to brainstorm, as was the intended use.

“Right.” Emma cants her mouth to the side. “Well. It was …personal. You shouldn’t have read it.”

There’s a brief silence. The trees out here are too tall and thick to be swayed by the wind, except for the very tops so between her and Regina there is only silence.

Finally, Regina huffs, “Fine,” She says, the flicks her hair away from her face. “It was a mistake, anyway,” Then, clearing her throat she says. “It won’t happen again.”

With a nod and a shrug, desperate to seem indifferent, Emma juts her thumbs into her pant pockets and tries to think of something else to talk about.

“Well…” Emma drifts off, glancing back at the bridge. “I’m guessing you didn’t see anyone come out here?”

“Just you, dear.”

“Right. Hah,” Emma winces, “So you don’t have any suspicions about who could be writing these messages?”

“No,” Regina huffs, and crosses her arms. “It could be anyone.”

“Well, it has to be someone that Henry has talked to, doesn’t it?”

With her flashlight directed to the ground, the light provides only a soft outline of the trees and ground around them, enough to separate Regina from the outer darkness, though it illuminates no more than her dark grey coat and pointed black shoes. Yet there is something about Regina’s eyes that can puncture through complete darkness. In a moment, Emma can find Regina’s eyes again. 

“I don’t see how you made that conclusion, Ms. Swan,” Regina answers with the same flat, sharpness as a shovel.

“Regina,” Emma heaves a sigh, “Come on. Do you know anyone else who could possibly be deemed a Queen-like figure in this town?”

“That curse business is just Henry’s fantasy of being with his _real_ mom,” Regina cuts an accusatory finger at Emma’s chest, and though she has repossessed a certain threatening aurora in the dark, the utter silence of the night cannot hide the edge of desperation in her voice, “It has _nothing_ to do with this town or with _me_.”

“Okay,” Emma soothes gently and nearly puts a placating hand on Regina’s arm, one of the many unthinking habits she has gotten into with Regina, but she remembers herself in time. With a sigh, she drops her hand. “You’re probably right. Does anyone live in the outskirts of town?”

Regina purses her lips. Even in the dim light, Emma can see the impulse to lie pass across her face.

A moment passes.

“Just one,” Regina answers rigidly, and flicks a hand through her hair in a nervous gesture, “But I wouldn’t visit him if I were you. He has a reputation of being a little…strange.”

“Oh,” Emma blinks, a dusty light going off, “Damn, of course. Jefferson, right?”

For a moment Regina merely stares at Emma with a numb kind of shock. Her mouth opens, and then she closes it again. The air buzzes with the silent watchful presence of the trees around them. Somewhere, an owl hoots.

“So you’ve met him already?” Regina asks, at last. Her voice has a breathless quality that instinctively puts Emma on edge, having heard it only in incredibly frightening situations. In this case, though, Emma knows she is the threat.

“Yeah,” Emma feels herself smile guiltily, though it is the last thing she wants to do, “Once.” In another lifetime.

Regina nods. Her expression gradually takes on the sharp-eyed precision of a jeweler, the look of someone trying to understand all that is hidden.

“So, did he …” Regina clears her throat, but there is no disguising the tremble in voice, “Did he say anything to you? Anything strange?”

“No,” she answers too quickly.

“He’s a strange, lonely man on the outskirts of town, with no good reason to talk to authorities, and you’re telling me he had nothing strange to say?”

“Well,” Emma smiles helplessly, “Nothing too strange.”

After a long moment, Regina merely hums. “Very well,” she answers so quietly, it is as if it hurt her to speak.

It takes all of Emma’s strength not to wrap Regina into her arms. A hot rush of feeling gathers in her chest and settles there like cement.

There is so much she’d like to say. There is so much that simply can’t be said.

“I’ll walk you to your car.” Emma says, instead.

Regina makes a noise that is almost a laugh, although the smile she gives Emma in the dark is not at all sweet or pretty.

“Really, Ms. Swan, all your well- _meaning_ intentions are duly noted,” Regina sneers, “You’re done for the day, go home.”

“Regina,” Emma sighs, “It’s dark, and it’s late. I’m not letting you walk anywhere alone.” 

“Come now, Sheriff. Don’t tell me you’re actually worried about me.”

“I am.”

The flat certainty of her voice must throw Regina a little, though her cool-eyed expression hardly moves at all.

“Regina,” Emma starts to tentatively walk closer, “I don’t know for sure who is writing these messages, but whoever they are, they’re clearly trying to spook you. That’s enough reason for me to take this seriously. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Perhaps it is the familiarity of her first name or the soft admission repeated once more, but suddenly, as the small space between them closes, Emma finds herself staring down at a very different version of Regina Mills -- a softer version, more open to rebuke and change, and so desperately anxious for love.

For a brief moment, Regina merely stares up at her, her eyes shining with a bright, watery intensity. Then she closes her eyes, and the gentleness dissipates in the space between them.

“Fine.” Regina allows and turns silently into the dark.

Emma follows close behind. Crickets buzz within the knee-high weeds. Trees gradually thicken around them; they hold in their branches a deep black shade that blots out even the light of the stars. Night will never feel the same in Storybook once the curse breaks – anything could come from these shadows. Emma picks up her pace a little so that she can stay close to Regina — she never quite got over her childhood fear of monsters, especially since many have turned out to be real.

The walk is long, but gradually Regina leads them through the mushy grass to a crumbling asphalt road along the cliff side. Along the bluffs lay a distant speckle of lights from the small clapboard houses. From somewhere in the darkness there is the sound of the ocean.

Emma casts her flashlight about, and at last finds the Mercedes, its metal a liquid black in the darkness.

With a pulse from the fob, the car chirps and unlocks, the interior light flicking on.

Opening the door, Emma watches as Regina slides tiredly into her car, starts the engine, and the sit there with the quiet dread of a prisoner about to face execution. She stares out her windshield into the scoured black night.

In the quiet, a soft older voice drifts in through the car speakers, interspersed with the faint cracklings of static.

When Regina abruptly flicks off the radio, the silence becomes deafening, and Emma stirs faintly, realizing she has stood by Regina’s open doorway for at least ten minutes.

Regina sends her a sideways glance, looking suddenly much younger than the six years spanning their timelines. Her slender shoulders look almost sunken beneath her wool jacket either from the cold or exhaustion, and her hands are pressed together like a prayer, held closely between her thighs. It is the position the body holds in terror; Emma recognizes it immediately, the instinct to close down, wrap your shoulders around your heart, and hold on to yourself any way you can.

“Regina,” Emma whispers softly, and stops, unsure of what to say.

After a long moment, Regina looks up at her. Her eyes are cold, dry, almost blank-looking, but the hands in her lap are trembling.

Staring down at her, Emma leans her arm against the car door. “Hey,” Gently, with as much surety as she can muster, Emma smiles, “Everything is going to turn out just fine, alright? I promise.”

Regina stares at her for a long moment, then she scoffs, and shakes her head.

“Careful Sheriff,” Regina’s voice sounds as brittle and dry as a branch snapping, “You may have to break that promise.”

The silence turns over in the wind, the air bustling through the endless trees. With a sigh, Emma bends and reaches slowly across Regina to grab the seatbelt behind her left shoulder; moving slow enough as to not to startle, she gently pulling the seatbelt across Regina’s body. Though Emma doesn’t look at Regina, Emma can feel the intensity of her attention as she slides the seatbelt into its lock with a final succinct click. After a beat, Emma looks back to Regina, and finds in those dark midnight eyes a deeply puzzled look of tenderness.

With all the warmth in her heart, Emma takes a hold Regina’s hand, squeezing those long fingers into her palm.

“I always keep my promises,” Emma whispers.

This time, when Regina looks up at her, the look of desperation in her eyes is unmistakable. It gathers a prickling tenderness into her throat, makes it difficult swallow.

Smiling at her best friend, Emma squeezes her wrist again. “Always.”

Regina doesn’t respond. She stares up at Emma with a sudden well of feeling, so enormous, it blurs all recognizable expressions.

For a moment, there is only the sound of their breathing. Beneath that, there is the soft drone of the car motor, and even further, the sound of water. Between them, something crackles. Something wild, mute, and suddenly frightening. It cannot be named, although Emma knows exactly what it is called. It’s the same feeling that rushed up Emma’s legs as she ran towards a vortex of darkness, and she suspects it is the same reason why she is here in the first place, looking for a new way to start.

Regina watches Emma silently until, somewhere in the distance, a porch light flicks on and they both blink. Regina frowns, and Emma drops her hand.

Stepping back, Emma gently raps the top of Regina’s car door.

“Get some rest, Regina,” Emma says softly. 

“Thank you,” Regina responds politely, almost absentmindedly, and then turns to stare blankly out her windshield. After a beat, she turns on her headlights, and Emma gently closes the door.

She waits until Regina’s car disappears fully into the darkness. Until the gloom of her taillights fade away When she walks back to the bridge, she stops, out of breath.

There, in laborious red paint: _DEATH TO THE QUEEN_

***

The next morning is an unseasonably warm day for November, the sky a bright cloudless blue. These bright autumn days are normally her favorite, but not even the warm bluster of autumn sunshine can warm over the ice in her heart as she trudges up the weedy path to Jefferson’s house.

Jefferson’s house is large, and unspeakably shabby. There are planks of wood missing from where the sea-air wore completely through, exposing the space inside to the rain and sun. The house looks slumped into the wet ground, unbalanced, as if it were slowly absorbing being absorbed into the dirt. Beneath the 7am light, the house had a doomed, slightly under-water look, as if it were a sunken ship along the ocean floor.

If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought the place was abandoned. But there is an ache in the back of her head that remembers this place.

When she steps up on the landing, she pauses to glance through the open windows where the curtains have blown in. The space is unlit, and appears empty, although knowing Jefferson, it is likely he already knows she is here. Emma sucks air in between her teeth and steels herself for the next conversation.

Knocking, she waits through three beats of stillness before the door opens.

“Sheriff,” Jefferson offers a bland smile, his teeth a perfect line along his bottom lip, “What a surprise. What do I owe for the pleasure of your visit?”

Emma grunts. This is something she always hated about villains – their smarmy, fake pleasantries. They all wanted to banter and play before any real fighting started. At least Regina had the decency to bare her teeth first, and whatever banter they shared afterwards only underlined the obvious threat.

“Let’s just get to the point,” Emma grunts, and steps up onto the wooden stoop, and stares into Jefferson’s cool grey eyes., “I noticed a little artwork on the bridge over there. Close to your home. I thought I’d check you out.”

“Artwork?” Jefferson tilts his head curiously, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re telling me you haven’t noticed the threatening messages on the bridge _half a mile_ from your house?”

“Oh, those,” Jefferson smiles, “Sorry Sheriff, I wasn’t sure if you meant the other artwork. I’m not much of an artist, myself, but I’ve taken a liking to some of the doodles drawn there.”

“Great,” Emma grunts, “So now that we’re on the same page, maybe you could tell me why you’re writing these messages?”

“Now why would I do that?”

“I don’t know Jefferson. Maybe you want to rile people up. Or maybe you think it’ll change the pace of how…”she bites the word _curse,_ and waves her hand vaguely, “How everything in this town plays out.”

Jefferson tilts his head slightly. His eyes seem to shrink inside his skull, draw back an inner light.

“So he was right, after all,” His lip curls as he speaks, his voice flat and measured, “You _do_ know about the curse, don’t you?”

Emma frowns, “Wait a minute—”

“You’re just watching it happen. You’re not even _trying_ to break it?”

“Hold on —” Emma holds up her hand, “That’s not true. I’m just — it’s complicated. And who’s this ‘ _he’_?”

“I didn’t think it was possible, at first. But here you are, not three days after the first message, fervently defending your Queen just as he predicted you would,” Jefferson’s expression sharpens and fills with disgust, as if he were looking down at a spider, “You’re sharing jokes and dinner parties with the Queen, while we all live the same day over and over again.”

Emma grits her teeth and breathes through the urge to defensively depose all credibility to his criticisms.

“Look,” Emma exhales deeply, “I _am_ going to break the curse. I’ve got it worked out but trying to scare Regina is not going to help anything, alright? You’re just adding unnecessary tension, so back off.”

Jefferson’s face shifts into one of blank-eyed satisfied expression, a look of cool triumph. She must have exposed some error or misjudgment in her thinking somewhere along the way, and with it, revealed the smarter of the two.

“Maybe it was _you_ I was trying to scare Sheriff.”

With a placid smile, Jefferson steps away as if to close the door. The closing of the door seems to signify so much about her life, the slow momentum of everything in her future becoming unrecognizable. As the door closes, Emma feels herself surge up the last two steps with the desperation of a woman about to lose everything; she wedges her shoulder into the doorframe and catches the door with her hand.

“You will not write another message on that bridge,” Emma snarls, “Do you understand me?”

Jefferson’s expression cools, “Don’t worry, Sheriff. I already got everything I need.”

Emma pushes against the door, holding steady. “Who are you working with?”

“That, Sheriff, is something you ought to know already,” Jefferson says, smiling, “Had you been paying attention.”

Then the door swings shut.

For an alarming moment, she thinks _is it Neal_? But Neal had refused to step out of the shadows in the original timeline and had remained hidden even after the curse broke. He wouldn’t be here now -- it had to be someone else. Someone who she used to know.

Emma closes her eyes. With a sigh, she takes out her notebook, and writes a single word:

_August_

***

The hours pass in a hurry, then. Emma devotes herself to tracking down August, but the man had become elusive as a fox in a burrow. He had not seemed like a man capable of hiding in the shadows, yet all around the town she met people who could initially recognize his description but lost track of who he was and where they might have seen him, the way people might recount an old forgotten story.

It goes something like this: “Have you seen a new guy in town? Usually on a motorcycle and wears a scarf?”

The cashier, hostess, random passerby blinks, “Yeah. I think I have, actually.”

“Do you know when or where you saw him.”

And just like that, any recognition would dissipate from their expression like fog in the late morning sun. Their memories are still so dream-like, as fluid as water, nothing new in this town can stay. The few people who might remember August in any substantial way is either devoted to the curse or extremely unhelpful, like Gold.

The day disappears quickly into the late afternoon haze -- the time of day where everything seems to be streaked in red, where thin columns of light turn tree trunks, storefronts, and roads the color of bricks. It is Regina’s favorite time of day, though she will not allow herself the time to enjoy it for at least another three years.

Following absentmindedly, Emma trails behind Henry as he skims through the small drums of salt-water taffy and sour candies. Henry’s chatter fills the small place as he carefully picks out his ten pieces of candy, a Regina-approved number that Emma has been authorized to oversee with clearly very little confidence, although Regina could hardly be expected to know that in the years to come Emma would find herself becoming the stricter mother of the two. She hangs a constant web of rules, like a safety net, beneath both Regina and Henry; she curbs the fun with curfews and check-in times, verifies whereabouts with a GPS tracker, and who constantly checks her phone to see whether the ‘ _got there safe’_ text was sent out at an appropriate time.

“Are you sure I can’t get twelve?” Henry asks again, sliding his finger along the glass container filled with chocolate covered treats.

“Nope, we’re sticking to ten,” Emma grins, and rustles his hair, “Nice try though.”

“I’ll eat it really quick,” Henry appeals, “My Mom won’t even know about it.”

“I’m afraid your little kid sugar-high will be a dead give-away,” she smiles, glances at her phone, “And anyway, ten pieces of candy are more than enough.”

“But I _never_ get candy!” Henry whines, and then stomps his foot (just like his mother). “And I don’t even _get_ sugar highs anymore!”

“Boy, do I wish that was true,” Emma whispers to herself. As Henry groans and passes the chocolates to review once more the sour-coated peach rings, Emma clears her throat, “Hey, kid. You wouldn’t happen to remember seeing a guy on a motorcycle around town? He’s about my height, with a scruffy beard, usually some kind of scarf around his neck.”

“Yeah.” Henry shrugs and inspects the peach rings carefully. “He stopped by the school like three weeks ago.”

“The school?” Emma blinks, “Really? Not your house?”

Henry’s face crinkles, “Why would he stop by my house?”

“Well. I don’t know. Didn’t your Mom see him?”

“No,” Henry gives her a critical once-over, a look he shares with his Mom whenever she is doubting another’s intelligence, “If he had stopped by the house, I’m sure my Mom would have killed him.”

“Why would he come by your _school_?”

Henry shrugs, “I don’t know. He just wanted to say hi, and have a look around, I guess,” His face crinkles again, “Don’t tell Mom about that. He was nice, and she will _definitely_ kill him if she finds out about that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Emma slides a weary palm along her forehead, “I just don’t understand how he could be here for so long, and not be spotted. Did you see him again?”

“Once or twice at Granny’s,” Henry shrugs and skips his fingers along the rows of clear-glass displays of chocolate dipped pretzels, “But if you want to find him, you should probably check out Granny’s to see if he got a hotel room.”

“Shit,” Emma winces. “Of course.” Why is her kid so much _better_ at this than her?

“Hey, Emma, can we buy some dark chocolate?” Henry’s head pops up from behind a glass cabinet with the same alert, animal-like attention of a chipmunk out of its burrow, “The real dark ones with caramel in the middle?”

Emma frowns. “You don’t like dark chocolate.”

“Yeah, I know,” Henry shrugs, “But it’s Mom’s favorite.”

Warmth surges into her chest. “Aw,” Emma smile blooms beyond her control. “You want to buy your Mom some chocolates?” 

“I guess,” Henry shrugs again, and looks down at his feet “She’s been a little stressed, lately.”

“Yeah. I bet,” Sliding a hand to her back pocket, she checks-in with the cash she has available. “Okay. So how many are we thinking?”

“I don’t know,” He squints through the glass sheen. “Maybe like…five of the almond ones, and six of those caramel cluster-things.”

She laughs. “Alright, kiddo,” she folds twenty bucks into his hands, “You buy your Mom that, and make sure you’re home before she is, alright? I’m going to check out Granny’s.”

“Okay,” Henry chirps innocently.

“Ten pieces,” she reminds him loudly, and then points at the cashier with a single reproving finger. “Ten pieces of candy for him, and eleven of those dark chocolate cluster things. Don’t let him get anything more.”

“Emma!” Henry wails as the door closes behind her.

Ten minutes later, she is standing in front of a very disapproving Granny.

“Yeah,” Granny sniffs, and looks at her carefully over her glasses. “He booked a room three weeks ago. Why do you want to know?”

“I know him,” Emma answers vaguely, “What’s the room number?”

“How do you know him?”

Emma frowns surprised by the gruff suspicion. “Granny, what do you think I’m up to? He’s a stranger in town. I want to check him out. What does it matter to you?”

Granny looks down at her from over her half-moon glasses, then, pursing her lips, she frowns deeply, “I doubt he’s in a state to be receiving company, Sheriff,” At Emma’s flat look, Granny shrugs, “He says he’s recovering from a motorcycle accident, but the way he stays in his room makes me think it’s something more serious. He hobbles around in the mornings for the continental breakfast, and may leave to go get some groceries, but otherwise he lives here.”

 _God_. Emma can hardly believe she’d forgotten such a detail. August’s life had always been intimately connected to the curse breaking. By the time the curse broke in their original timeline, August could hardly move. She shivers to think of his condition now.

“What’s his room number?” Emma asks, her voice like a slab of stone.

When Granny merely purses her lips, Emma leans over the counter to quickly skim through the scribble of Granny’s notebook, the rooms organized alphabetically.

“B2,” Emma plops down on her feet, “Great. That’s just up the stairs, right? On the left? Thanks.”

She jumps up the narrow stair-well quick as a rabbit, and only slows when she hears Granny’s grumbling disappear behind her. The door is the first one to the left and locked like a vault. Once in front of the door, Emma stands ruefully in the dim hallway like a kid who went against curfew and regrets it deeply, faced with undesirable consequences. Weak air-shaft light floats in through the open window. Noise from the street filters in through the blinds.

Emma gently knocks on the door. “August?” she calls, half-apologetic already. “You here?”

Only silence answers her. In the cool, nowhere space of the hallway, Emma manages to wait another five minutes before her patience runs out. Plucking a paperclip from her back pocket, Emma works the tumblers in the lock until she hears a soft click. With a twist of the handle, she pushes the door open, and sighs.

It is certainly August’s room. Even empty, she could tell. It had the incomplete, distracted air of him. The room smells of paper, and old take out. Loose papers are strewn about the room. On an empty chair sits that stupid scarf of his, and on the wall leans a whiteboard, which seems to have detailed accounts of both her and the Evil Queen’s whereabouts.

She whistles softly at the ferocious disapproval in the notes beneath the Evil Queen’s side and slides her hand along the bed’s coverlet where papers flutter beneath the ceiling fan. 

She catches a few words of what seems to be an old scrupulous text on his bedspread, a detailed account of magic that he might have gleaned from an old mentor or simply stuffed into his bag before taking off. Even after all these years, it is still hard to pin down August’s character, to see him fully through his general kindness and boyish shiftiness.

But it seems like she’s not the only one in need of help, here.

Pausing at August’s work desk, Emma rips out a piece of paper from her notepad and sits in the chair. She plucks one of the fancy pens from his pencil holder, briefly appreciates its silver stylish presence, then writes on her paper.

_August, it’s Emma — We need to talk. Call me when you get back. 617-817-2447_

Just then, her phone begins to vibrate in her pocket. Fumbling for her phone, she glances at it briefly, and quickly wedges it between her ear and shoulder. 

“Madame Mayor, are you --?”

“There haven’t been any new threats written on the bridge. Have you found the person whose been vandalizing it?” Regina’s voice has the ability to cut straight through any mood, good or bad, and leave a tingling possibility in its wake.

“I did, actually,” Emma grins.

She is surprised to find herself suddenly puffing the story up in her head, turning it into a more heroic romantic version. A small fantasy builds in her head, one where she tells the heroic version of her story, and Regina listens in rapt, appreciative amazement – a fantasy which Regina swiftly cuts through with her classic back-to-business voice.

“And you had him arrested?”

All the breath leaves her. “No, I did not,” Emma sighs, and slumps against the seat. “But he admitted to it, and I got his word that he won’t be doing it again.”

“Oh,” Regina’s voice wells with light, tinkling mockery. Emma sighs. “I see. So you got his word? Did he pinkie promise?”

“Regina.”

“Maybe you could take him out for a beer next time.”

“Oh my god, Regina. Come on,” Emma half-laughs, “I scrubbed off all evidence on the bridge. I can’t arrest someone for something that’s gone and won’t happen again. And he _won’t_ do it again, I’ll make sure of it.”

“Oh. Okay. Can I get a pinkie promise?”

“Regina,” Emma laughs.

“You know, I really didn’t think you’d have such a ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ approach with someone who you were so worried about _hurting_ me the other day.” Regina’s voice has a rough sandy quality to it, something light and dry, “Are you feeling like switching sides, Sheriff?”’

A painful spasm of fondness tightens around her ribs. Emma pines quietly, wanting to reach out to Regina. Years ago, she would have gotten defensive at the slightest jab of her character, and they would have argued until one of them hung up. But there is nothing mysterious about Regina’s moods anymore. They came to her like radio transmissions broadcasted from somewhere inside her own head.

“Regina,” Emma makes sure to level her voice. Fondness can so easily be misinterpreted as condescension to Regina. “I’m not trying to make light of the situation. I will arrest him if he continues, but as of right now we don’t have any evidence, and I really think he’s finished making his point.

“Which is what point, exactly?” Regina sneers, “Does he think the Savior is getting a little sidetracked? Maybe he’s right, maybe she should just get on with it, and get it over with.”

There is an unnerving quality to Regina’s voice. It sounds almost unbearably like panic.

“Regina...” Emma gently rubs her head. “I…”

“I don’t care what anyone thinks.” Regina interrupts fiercely, her voice like a wall, “I don’t care if they think I’m a monster. But they can’t just vandalize my town like it’s _nothing_. I won’t stand for that.”

Emma opens her mouth, but finds she has no idea what to say. She doesn’t know how to exist with Regina in this way anymore. She wants to be the version of herself that Regina trusts, and fears nothing from. The version Regina finds as gentle, loyal, a little goofy, and incapable of deception. The version that is loved dearly.

“Look,” Emma slides a palm along her forehead and settles her elbow against the back of the chair, “I can arrest him if you want to send a message, but I won’t be able to hold him there. I think if anything it’ll just piss him off.”

They pass through a minute of silence. The room darkens a shade, the light outside finally slipping behind the trees.

A soft sigh buzzes over the line.

“I suppose there’s no point in doing that,” Regina admits gruffly. Before Emma can fully let out a breath, Regina intercedes again, “For the record, I am not, and never have been afraid of Jefferson. I’m not calling you because I’m _afraid_.”

Emma laughs softly, “I can’t imagine anything scaring you that much.”

The silence flashes back the falsity of those words. Regina hums softly, and the line briefly clears of static.

”Well…” There’s a pause. A mini misfire must occur in Emma’s brain, because her original intent to wrap up the phone-call is interrupted by a question abruptly leaving her mouth, “Do you want to come over sometime?”

She hears herself say it. It comes out as a surprise and punctures the air. There is no other way to describe it. The air is empty of all emotion, the silence a sucking black hole.

“What?” Regina asks at last, sounding incredibly tentative.

Emma sits through the urge to say, _“Sorry, it was a bad joke.”_ Now that the invitation is there, she cannot take it back.

“For dinner, I mean,” Emma continues a little roughly, and picks at the uneven seam of paper in front of her, “I mean, I can’t cook a meal like you can, but I thought I could order something. If you wanted to hang out.”

A longer, more painful silence passes between them. The streetlight flicks on and offers a single globe of warmth from the frigid evening air.

“At Mary Margret’s apartment?” Regina asks skeptically. “I don’t think that would be wise.”

“Right,” Emma pushes a brash laugh out of her lungs, her heart squirming painfully, “That would be bad.”

“Right.”

“Unless Mary Margaret wasn’t there.” Emma winces, and closes her eyes.

This time, the silence is unbearable. Nothing can soften the searing stillness between them.

“Fine,” Regina answers, abruptly. “Tomorrow night. Seven o clock.” Then she hangs up.

Emma exhales a shaky laugh into the empty quiet. “Seven o’ clock,” she echoes, smiling softly, and shakes her weary head. “What the fuck am I doing?” she whispers and rubs her forehead.

***

Later that evening, Emma dozes in and out of consciousness, barely awake enough to feel her thoughts moving beneath her dream. It is one of those sweet, beautiful dreams where everything is warm and unhurried like a slow car-ride where everyone she loves is somewhere in the car with her, talking with her, laughing with her, loving her. The dream flickers as her phone buzzes sharply on her thigh, and Emma’s heart jolts. Glancing at it, she blinks at the unknown number, and nearly allows herself to return to her dream, to the soft undercurrent of love laying just beyond consciousness, but as the phone continues, she sits up, a small light going off in her head.

Blinking blearily, Emma slides the phone to her ear. “August?”

“Emma.” August’s rough voice wavers over the phone. “It took a while longer than I thought to get your attention.” There is still that good-natured friendliness in his voice as if he just cracked a joke.

“It sure did,” Emma huffs, and rubs a palm across her tired eyes, “I guess seeing me in person might have speed things up a bit.”

“Walking around town has become substantially more difficult for me since coming to this town,” August sighs, “I’m going to assume that since you’ve reached out to me, and that you seemingly know me by name, then you know who I really am. And you know about the curse.”

“Yep,” Emma rubs her eyes. “Yeah, I sure do.”

“Alright. How did you figure it out?”

“That’s uh…” Squinting, Emma hums uneasily. “Well, it’s a long story.”

“It sounds like we have a lot we need to talk about. Can we grab dinner tomorrow?”

A beat of uncomfortable silence passes. Emma hums out her uncertainty, though no possible excuse comes to mind.

“Don’t tell me. You have a date,” August humors, although the jovial levity has left his voice. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the Evil Queen, would it?”

“Look,” Emma sighs, “Regina has been under a lot of stress since those messages you put on the bridge. I just want to make sure she’s alright…” she clears her throat, “And, you know, won’t snap and go on some killing spree again.”

“Breaking the curse is going to make her considerably more unhappy. I hope you don’t plan on putting that off just to ease her mind.” Emma grunts, her skin prickling defensively. August sighs, “And I reached out to Jefferson when I realized you were a little …distracted. I didn’t tell him what to do or say, just asked him to get your attention somehow. Which, he did. That it was your fear for the Queen that brought you to this point was not loss on Jefferson. You may want to reevaluate your priorities if you want the town to trust you later.”

“Right.” Emma grunts, “Look. I’ll meet you for lunch or coffee on Saturday, alright?”

“Alright.”

The line ends abruptly, leaving behind a buzzing heavy silence. With a groan, Emma sinks back into the couch and stares up at her ceiling. When she closes her eyes, the dream pulses forward and then recede again, gone for good this time. 

***

The next day passes quickly. Emma manages to convince Mary Margaret to find someplace else to be that evening, and then dedicates what little time she has after work to clean up their small little apartment. She wipes the windows until the sky outside is clear, scrubs the kitchen, mops the floor, and even reorganizes the trinkets on the windowsill, dusting beneath each photograph and the multitude of religious ceramic statues, which is a layer to Mary Margaret she’d forgotten.

At six forty-five there is a single precise knock on her door which is only two minutes earlier than Emma had expected, but the sound still rises the hair on the back of her neck and makes her heartbeat boom loudly behind her ears. Taking in a deep breath, Emma rearranges one last time the plates, silverware, and boxes of take out into a way that seems at least objectively appealing, and then moves as calmly as she can to the door.

On the other side, in a wool coat and a black dress fitting snugly against her curves, Regina stands with a chocolate dessert of some kind in a Pyrex dish.

“Hi,” Emma breathes.

“Emma,” Regina uses her name as a greeting all on its own, which produces the same soft thrill as it always has.

Funny, how after all this time, Regina can still make her speechless. Emma has no banter strategy for the way those dark eyes can close the world around her, make her feel suddenly back at the beginning, at the very first breathless moment she saw this woman running barefoot out of the house with open arms.

A dark brow lifts. “May I come in?”

“Yes,” she half-laughs, and steps backwards until Regina can enter, “I got us some Thai, sound good to you?”

Regina glances to the counter where the sight of the red and black boxes eases the side of her mouth with real pleasure.

“Yes, perfect. I brought just a little dessert -- I hope you like chocolate cobbler,” Regina presents the still-warm Pyrex to Emma, who must immediately give away her dessert-zeal for the offer is quickly retracted and put out of reach as Regina moves to safety the kitchen, talking as she goes, “I won’t need to reminder you that dessert comes _after_ dinner, my dear?”

Her heart skips at the endearment. Emma laughs. “Well…at least no more than once.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Regina looks out across the room, and folds her brow. “Is that a puzzle?”

Oh, _checkmate_.

“Yeah,” Emma barely conceals her smile as she turns to the living room, the puzzle in disarray on a small, flat table, “Why? Do you like puzzles?”

Regina shrugs nonchalantly, which unequivocally means _yes_.

Hours before, Emma had carefully disassembled the old panoramic puzzle of Greece that Mary Margaret had framed on the wall years ago, knowing that the surest way to neutralize a stressed, angry Evil Queen was to occupy her with an activity, something she’d find endlessly entertaining. Like crosswords, old academic texts, or puzzles. Something most would consider boring, but Regina, of course, would delight in.

“Yeah, Mary Margaret asked me to finish it for her, and I guess I was too confident when I agreed. It’s a little too much sitting and staring for me.”

“Hm, that is surprising.”

“Hey,” Emma laughs. “That’s like a _thousand_ pieces. It’s a lot to work with, alright?”

Regina rolls her eyes. “Please,” she says with the most imperious voice possible, “That’s easy. You just have to separate it all by colors.”

“Sounds like you got a strategy,” With a hidden smile, Emma sits cross-legged on the floor and pulls the small flat table closer, “How about you come and help me, then.”

“Fine.” Regina shrugs like she’s not _stoked_ and uncorks a wine bottle.

For a while, nothing is said. Regina instructs her to flip each puzzle on its right side, and so she does so quietly, watching from the corner of her eye as Regina analyzes the model-picture and begins to organize each puzzle into similar-color piles. Their plates sit on the floor beside them, their wine glasses held between crossed legs.

A quiet peace settles between them. Emma has always been fascinated by Regina’s ability to focus for hours with single minded determination toward the completion of any given task. Her mind is almost machine-like in that way, completely unalloyed by disinterest or distraction.

“First, flip all of the pieces on the right side,” Regina instructs in that same firm teacher-voice of hers that never fails to rouse in Emma the urge to please.

“Sure,” Emma swiftly smooths her fingertips along the white and blue puzzle pieces, “What’s next.”

“We will start on the border, and then move inward from there. Notice how these pieces have a flat edge to them? That’s how we know they’re a border-piece,” Regina says, and subtly looks at Emma to make sure that her student is paying attention.

Emma grins. Regina clearly enjoys playing the role of a teacher, even more so than she lets on. She finds it naturally even now, in the past, with something as simple as a puzzle.

“You’re the boss,” Emma says, and barely hides her smile when Regina glows with pleasure.

Time passes, mostly in silence. Occasionally, an elbow will pass incidentally over a forearm or a knee will rest briefly against a thigh or fingers will brush as they approach the same puzzle piece. But otherwise, the silence is complete, almost companionable.

Emma glances subtly at Regina.

A black strand of hair has fallen from where it had been tucked behind Regina’s ear. It softens her face. As Regina flips through the piles of puzzle pieces, Emma’s heart glows. She could so easily be _her_ Regina, the softer, more careful Regina, the one prone to nerdy jokes and unexpected laughter. Emma watches silently as Regina carefully fits another puzzle piece against its near identical and smooths it gently down with the tips of her fingers.

“You’re staring.”

Emma slowly blinks. When she looks up again, Regina is staring directly back at her. A watchfulness has entered her eyes, eliminating their softness. 

Slowly, Emma shrugs. “You remind me of someone.”

Regina’s expression recedes slowly, in small degrees. Her face tightens first, and then her smile dims. In those dark eyes, Emma can see Regina weighing this new information carefully, to see whether she likes it or not.

“I see,” Regina answers at last, “I presume this is a _close_ friend of yours?”

Emma raises an eyebrow, surprised at the tension in Regina’s voice.

“She is,” Emma says, and smiles, “She’s a real good friend.”

Something dark flashes across Regina’s expression, but it passes too quickly to understand.

“You haven’t mentioned this _friend_ before.” Regina tightens lips disdainfully and snatches a piece of roti bread from their shared plate.

Emma silently observes Regina as she folds the roti bread in her hands and tears it in half. For years, she has been able to pick up on Regina’s moods, tune in to the little tensions, but like a radio, it is still so easy for an emotion to slip from her understanding, and dissolve into static.

“I guess not,” Emma cocks her head curiously, and smiles, leaning her elbow into the couch, “Why? Does that matter?”

“No, of course not,” Regina scoffs, and looks away, “Why would I care about any of your friends?”

“You’re the one who asked.”

“Then forget I _asked_ , Ms. Swan.” Regina snaps.

“Okay,” Emma answers slowly. She studies Regina’s expression closely.

Regina had always been a jealous friend. She never enjoyed being counted among a rank of other acquaintances; she wanted to have surpassed them all, to be the _first_ confidant, and thus the _best_.

But they’re not necessarily friends now. Yet… the expression on her face is undeniably jealous.

“I have to say, though,” Emma begins, smiling, “You’re _way_ cooler than her.”

A warm flush heats Regina’s cheeks.

“We’re not in middle school, I don’t care about being cooler than your _friend_ , Ms. Swan.”

“Sure you don’t,” Emma smiles and bites into her roti. Under her attention, however, Regina blushes a deeper color of red. She scoffs and leans over to grab her wine, yet as she settles into the couch again, there is a slight readjustment that brings her a little closer to Emma than before.

Another hour passes. They spend some of the time talking, and other times working contently beside one another. Eventually, Emma collects the plates and leaves them in the sink. Regina orders her to put the dessert in the oven again and give it at least five minutes to heat up.

As Emma is returning with two warm bowls of chocolate cobbler, she notices Regina pouring them both another glass of wine. Her stomach flutters pleasantly at Regina’s subtle glance of interest from Emma’s bare feet then to her soft-wrangled hair.

“I hope you know we won’t be completing this tonight,” Regina says just as Emma settles down beside her.

Emma blinks, “Huh?”

“Well, these puzzles usually take me at least two days to complete. And while I’m keeping a fairly good pace, you’re no master at this,” Regina glances at with a curve of a smile, softened by wine and the evening light, “If you were hoping to hide the fact that you dismantled your roommate’s puzzle before she got home, I think you might have made a misjudgment.”

“Ah.”

Emma wrinkles her mouth. Of course Regina would be privy to all the small things that built up Mary Margret’s identity here. The small reminders to a home she cannot remember. A picture of Greece, to remind her of the white beaches and salt-scored bluffs near the castle she can only dream about.

Regina sips her wine with single acquiescing hum, clearly pleased to have called Emma’s bluff.

“Uh,” Emma rubs the back of her neck, “Would you believe me if I said I dropped it?”

“Hm,” Regina’s wine glass livens in the evening light to interfere only briefly with the fondness of her smile, “I suppose so. That does sound like you.”

“Well, then, there you go. I uh, picked it up and then whoops, there it went. Scattered all over the place.”

“Wow. What a shame,” Regina’s dark lips quirk up into a smile, “It’s so lucky you thought to invite me. It’s like you knew I was especially good at puzzles.”

Heat flushes up Emma’s neck.

“Uh yeah,” Emma coughs, embarrassed. “Yeah. It was pure luck, wasn’t it?”

The corners of Regina’s eyes crinkle. She hums contentedly, the way a cat might purr in the warm sun.

“You’ve now strung me into playing a game with you twice now,” Her eyes glow. “Why?”

It is such a simple question, yet it skims terrifyingly close to a real matter, the largest staple to her persistently disappointing future, the one which Emma has flinchingly avoided talking about in their present life together. Vulnerability can so easily make Emma’s brain cloud over, make her withdraw a few inches from reality, behind a hard-external shell of indifference. It is behavior that belongs to ten-year-old boys when confronted with their crushes, not a woman in her thirties, but she can’t seem to shake the grip of her nerves. 

She always thought she’d have another chance to be courageous.

Emma shrugs, and sips her wine so that her admission, “Because I enjoy it,” sounds weightless rather than confessional.

Yet the words hang in the air. The silence between them feels surprisingly new, tentative as if some delicate glass has shattered between them. When Emma tentatively glances up at Regina again, her heart stops. A slow fondness is unfolding in Regina’s expression; it begins as a tentative pull in the corner of her mouth and gradually warms behind those shining dark eyes, lifts her eyebrows.

Though the sun has long vanished, and the last of the light is dim and faraway, Regina’s eyes are warm as if touched by a brilliant light. 

The space between them is minimal. A half a couch cushion away, Regina’s legs are folded neatly at the ankle, one hand on her knee and the other resting on the arm of the couch behind Emma. Regina’s dark warm eyes makes everything feel so much closer.

“We should have our dessert,” Regina tentatively brushes her hand along Emma’s hair, eliciting a small shiver, “Before it gets cold.”

“Right,” Emma exhales.

The chocolate dessert is too hot to touch even through the porcelain bowl, but Regina seems to have no difficulty scooping up a spoonful into her mouth. Emma watches in amazement as those red lips close around the tip of the spoon and leave behind not even a trace of chocolate left.

After a moment, she arches an eyebrow at Emma. “I would have thought yours would be gone by now.”

A flush prickles along Emma’s neck. “Well, Christ,” She huffs, “It’s burning hot, Regina. I can’t devour molten lava as easily as you.”

“Oh,” Regina’s lips pucker in a soft simpering way, “I’m sorry, baby. You want me to cool it down for you?”

Emma laughs, despite the growing warmth on her neck. “You can be _such_ an asshole. You know that, right?”

“Oh, I know,” Regina purrs and lifts another spoonful to her lips again.

This time, when the spoon gives away, a droplet of chocolate remains on Regina’s upper lip. Emma glances down at it briefly and bites her smile. For a moment, she considers not telling Regina. She imagines her going through the whole evening with a drop of chocolate on her lip and finding it only after returning home, later that evening in her bathroom mirror. She can perfectly picture the flash of rage on Regina’s face, and the ensuing disaster that would be their next conversation, likely the next morning, which would be sullen and irritable until Emma apologized.

Emma smiles, thinking about it. And then she shifts up onto her elbow.

“Here,” she says, and reaches to gently grip the bottom of Regina’s chin.

Regina goes still, her eyes flashing wide with shock as Emma carefully smooths the chocolate off of her upper lip.

She had meant for the motion to be a quick, one-motion gesture, but the way Regina’s breath hitches against her wrist slows her down.

Her throat suddenly very dry, Emma feels her thumb dip gently into Regina’s lower lip, though the chocolate is long gone. Unable to pull away, Emma drags her thumb slowly across Regina’s lower lip, mesmerized.

When she looks back into Regina’s eyes, there is a black depth there that seems to well over the way a river overflows its bank, seeping over old boundaries, deepening as the water washes over itself again and again.

Her breath revs in her chest. Slowly, Emma cups Regina’s cheek, the hot flush of skin warming her palm. She can feel the flutter of Regina’s pulse against her fingertips.

After a beat, Regina’s eyes flutter close and she gently angles her face towards Emma’s hand in a way that seems like an invitation. Emma’s heart rackets loudly in her head as she gently smooths the tips of her fingertips down a strong cheekbone to the smooth line that creases around Regina’s mouth. She drags her thumb along Regina’s lower lip again, and exhales roughly as Regina presses a soft kiss against her thumb.

In the late evening light, Regina’s face is soft and warm. Her mouth has lost its seductive curve, now soft and supple against her thumb, waiting for more.

Trembling, Emma leans down to press a soft kiss against the corner of Regina’s mouth. A hot rush of breath burns against her ear, growing heavier as Emma begins to press soft, barely-there kisses down Regina’s cheek to her jaw. With a soft groan, Regina gently grips the back of Emma’s arms and holds her close, splaying out her neck with the perseverance of a stone as if she were only a statue of a woman about to be kissed, cursed to wait forever for the touch of real lips.

She kisses Regina’s ear warmly, then the top of her eyebrow, then over a closed eyelid. A soft sigh passes out of Regina, warming Emma’s neck. Shivering, Emma then slowly kisses down Regina’s other cheek, to the very corner of her lips once more. Regina trembles and grips Emma tighter, as if she feared Emma may dissolve into thin air.

Just as Emma is about to capture Regina’s lips, the phone on the cushion between them pings. It sends a soft aquatic glow up into the dark, illuminating their faces.

“Shit,” Emma grumbles, and blinks down at the phone. Her phone. Scooping it up, she blinks at her text.

August: _[11:56] What time should we meet tomorrow?_

“Fuck,” Emma groans, and closes her eyes. Her heart booms loudly in her ears.

“What’s wrong,” Regina breathes. She is still close enough for her breath to warm Emma’s face.

“Nothing.” Emma grimaces, and pushes the knuckle of her forefinger hard into the side of her temple. Already, the trembling excitement of the last few seconds is turning instead into a terrifying dread, rising high above her like an enormous black wave, rumbling with imminent destruction. She inhales deeply, “I’m sorry, but…it’s getting late,” she rubs her forehead, “I think you should probably go.”

Regina blinks blankly, as if dazed.

Then, slowly, Regina draws back. Her face flickers with a lost, uncomprehending look as if she’d just been slapped. Then, with a single blink, her face is empty again. Emma lets out a soft pained groan, knowing that this will send them reeling back into a state of angry hostility to which they may never return from, at least not for many years.

As Regina begins to shift away, sliding a foot onto the carpet floor, Emma feels a buck of unruly terror in her stomach and it sends her across the rest of the couch cushion to grab both of Regina’s wrists.

“Wait,” Emma breathes.

“What?” Regina snaps, and tries to yank her arm away, “You told me to go. So I’m leaving.”

Emma holds on tight. “Please,” she beseeches, trying to silently overcome the fraught tension between them, but Regina remains fiercely unmoved.

“Let go of me,” Regina bends to speak directly into Emma’s face, her lips close enough to kiss and her voice a strip of barbed wire. 

Regina has the scorch-the-earth kind of anger, an anger that could easily burn until all that remains is char, a black, empty field where nothing can grow, and won’t grow again, not for many years. Their friendship already will have to survive a broken curse, frigid child-custody arrangements, and brutal arguments –that they managed to love one other after all of their attempts to ruin one another had never seemed destined to Emma. In truth, their friendship always seemed to defy the very laws of the universe, which made it all that more special and fragile to her. The slightest mistake could blow everything away.

“Wait, I don’t want you to leave like this.” Emma pulls on her, and Regina tumbles closer.

“You can’t just –” Regina yanks back, though weaker now, becoming upset, “You can’t just kiss me like that and then brush me off like I’m some mistake. I don’t know who you think you are, but you can’t just _brush me off_ , Ms. Swan.”

“I don’t _want_ to brush you off.”

Regina looks down at her fiercely, her face gripped by an emotion so powerful it penetrates straight through Emma’s heart. She halts, blinking up at the force of it. Though her grip is loose enough now for Regina to yank away, she doesn’t. She stands in front of Emma with a look so crumpled and genuine Emma realizes, suddenly, that it can only be heartbreak.

Heat sweeps up Emma’s ribcage, stealing her breath. She stares blankly back at Regina, dumbly astonished.

As the corners of Regina’s mouth weigh down, Emma finds herself leaning up, gripping both sides of Regina’s face and pulling her down into a kiss.

There’s a startled _Mph_ sound that vibrates briefly between their lips, and then a soft sigh as Regina softens and kisses her back.

As their lips touch again, a shock of magic buzzes between them. It’s a familiar sensation – Emma has felt it a thousand times before, whenever their magic combined during a fight or brushed hands if tensions were high, these same tremors prickled along her skin – yet, feeling it now, here, it tugs Emma’s heart up sharply between her ribs.

Regina’s breath hitches, and for a moment, with Regina standing over a still seated Emma, they stay together in utter silence, the two of them touching only by the lips and trembling as if they’d never kissed another pair of lips in their entire lives, as if they’d never felt a touch just as frighteningly new and exciting as this one. After a long moment, their lips just softly touching, Regina slides her hands over Emma’s shoulders and dig firmly into her shirt-collar, drawing her as close as possible despite the odd angle.

Despite the intensity of her grip, Regina kisses are surprisingly gentle, not at all like the harsh-demanding kisses she’d fantasized over all these years. Instead, Regina brushes over Emma’s lips with warm, barely-there kisses so soft it leaves everything tingling. Trembling, Emma exhales shakily and wraps her arms around Regina’s waist to bring her closer.

A soft groan vibrates between them. Sliding one knee onto the couch cushion and then the other, Regina settles fully on Emma’s lap. There, in the dim lamplight, Emma catches a smile so utterly striking on Regina that it momentarily steals all the air in the room.

Although Emma can’t see her own face, she can imagine the sort of look that might make Regina laugh, and considering how rare it is for Regina to laugh so openly, with that low, rich, belly-deep laugh of hers, she can also guess how seriously stupid she must look.

“Oh, Emma,” Smiling still, Regina bends to lay her forehead squarely against Emma’s, nuzzling her gently in a surprisingly affectionate manner. In her periphery, Emma can still see Regina smiling.

Emma’s eyes flutter shut. If this is real…if this isn’t just another scheme to soften the backlash of the curse breaking…did Regina have the potential to _feel_ this way about Emma all this time?

_All this time?_

Or is it only because she hasn’t met Robin yet. Did everything change after that moment? Will everything change still?

Emma’s heart spasms in her chest, tightening her grip on Regina’s hips.

A soft moan sounds low in Regina’s throat. She nips at Emma’s ear.

“Do you still want me to go?” Regina whispers against her ear.

A shiver runs down her spine. Emma lets out a quiet little groan, knowing what her answer must be.

“I really enjoyed tonight,” Emma whispers. Sensing a shift of weight, Emma slips her hands beneath Regina’s shirt and rubs slow, warm circles along the strong plane of her back. “And I’d like to do it again. But I do have something important to do in the morning.”

After a beat, Regina rests her head against Emma’s forehead once more.

“Okay.” she whispers.

They stay there for a long time, completely quiet, laying in each other’s arms until the streetlights turn off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed <3


	4. part four

The next morning, the rain is heavy. It must freeze temporarily into hail as Emma hurries from the warmth of her car to Granny’s door, because the rain begins to bounce off sidewalks and windshields with the same the deftness of small rocks. Emma grunts and quickens her speed towards the diner, peering briefly through the frost-covered glass over the heads of other guests, skimming until she spots the familiar hunch of August’s shoulders.

“August, hey,” Emma sighs heavily as she drops down in the other side of the table.

August arches both eyebrows, and smiles. “Didn’t think to get an umbrella?”

“I didn’t think it’d get so intense,” Emma shrugs off her heavy jacket and blows a warm stream of air through her icy fingers.

Shrugging, August brings his coffee up to his chin. He looks at Emma evenly for a long time.

At last, he asks. “How long have you known about the curse?” When Emma grimaces, he turns up his charm, “You said it was a long story.”

“It sure is,” Emma hums and stirs her coffee with a spoon, “Do you know anything about time travel?”

August blinks slowly, and then frowns. “Sure I do,” his brow deepens uneasily. “I mean, most of what we know about time travel is just conceptual, but we have records of it happening.”

“Yup,” Emma sips her coffee, and grimaces at the taste of pure jet fuel. “So. Let’s say hypothetically that I am from the future.” She pauses long enough to see a flicker of surprise in the corner of August’s face, and decides to plow straight ahead, straight through all the bumpy details, “And let’s also assume that, for me, the curse has been broken for about six years now. But, for some reason, I guess, I still felt a little miserable with how my life worked out, and I wanted it to change. And so I accidentally sent myself six years into the past.”

When she looks up, August is staring at her in horror, his eyes wide and his mouth agape.

Emma winces, and smiles. “So. Uh, what do you say would be the worst to come of that?”

“Christ.” August breathes, and rubs his face. “Well, Emma. The list is sort of endless. First, since you’ve traveled back in time, literally everything is up in the air. So, everything about your future could change, including the curse breaking.”

“Right, well. I figured that,” Couching her irritation into the side of her mouth, Emma slides her empty water cup to the side of the table to shorten the waitress’ reach as she fills both their glasses to the brim. “Thanks. I mean, I will make _sure_ the curse is broken… but beyond that, does it really matter if a few things in my future changes?” The thought of Regina’s mouth tickles her memory, flushing her cheeks. She clears her throat. “I mean…what if it’s for the best?”

“Emma,” August shakes his head in amazement. “No. Any radical change to your future could potentially bar you from ever returning to it.”

A beat passes.

“Okay,” Emma takes another sip of coffee. “Expand on that.”

August sighs heavily, “Look. When you go back in time, your future life can’t advance without you. That moment in time is essentially on-pause waiting for you to come back. Should you change your future radically or decide to live out the years until the point of your disappearance, each decision that you make would gradually be changing the very conditions that made you go back in time in the first place. Which would create a paradox.”

“Okay…”

“Which is a _bad thing_ , Emma.” August exhales deeply and leans back into his chair, “Do you know why there are not a lot of records of people traveling through time?”

Leaning her elbows on the table, Emma prepares for a mini lecture, “Enlighten me,” she sighs, “Why isn’t there any records?”

“Because when people do travel back in time, they tend to do the same _stupid shit_ that you’re doing right now,” August answers flatly, “They change their past dramatically, making it impossible to access their future again, because it becomes too unpredictable to return to. As a result, they are forced to live out the years until the moment they disappeared, in which” August snaps his fingers for effect, “You disappear. Fall straight out of this world into some sourceless black hole where all other paradoxes exist.”

“Wait,” Emma stammers, “ _What_? I would _disappear_?”

“Yes,” August sips his coffee, and then waves his hand vaguely, “I mean, our records are a little loose on that. You might just be plopped back into the past, where you continue in an endless loop. But, regardless, you cease to exist for the people whose lives continue beyond that moment you disappeared from.”

“I would cease to _exist?_ ” Emma echoes, and then weakly slumps into her chair, “Well fuck. That sucks.”

“So, we really need to find a way to return you to your timeline, before you change too many things.”

“Okay. Okay,” Emma feels a heat in her head. Her blood buzzes loudly. “Okay. Well. N0thing too dramatic has changed.”

“That’s good. We will just need to find a way to return you to your timeline before anything major changes.”

“Okay.”

A silence passes.

“Well, okay, _one_ sort of big thing has changed.” August looks up at her uneasily, his face pinched already in apprehension. “Um, well. Regina and I have become sort of …more friendly…in this timeline.”

“Oh god.”

“We’re really close friends in the future, so I don’t think that would change _too_ much…”

“Maybe not,” August says, but his voice has a weary, placating tone to it that sounds too much like the sort of comfort you’d share to someone who was beyond help. “Maybe it won’t be too bad. If it’s just a little friendliness, then things should go back to normal once you are returned to your rightful place. But nothing major can change.”

“Right.”

A moment of silence passes. Then, August grimaces.

With a grunt, August shifts his legs out from beneath the table. “Here, help me up,” He extends his hand towards Emma.

 _Are you alright_? is on the tip of Emma’s tongue before she swallows it down again. Of course he’s not alright. By the stiffness in his legs, and potentially further up his back and arms there are already parts of him that are closing down, becoming as inaccessible and unfeeling as marble.

Standing, she grips his hand. His palm is still warm, fully flesh and bones.

“You might have to walk me a little ways,” August grunts and nods to the hallway where the restrooms are. Grabbing him by the elbow, Emma hauls him up onto his feet, tugs his arm over her shoulder and walks him towards the half-lit hallway, beyond the other tables and kitchen entrances.

“I’ll be a moment,” August tenses up when she doesn’t leave, so with a gruff, friendly slap on her shoulder he says, “I can do the rest on my own.”

She clenches her jaw. What can she say? His pain, along with all the others, had flushed from her memory, had been superseded by the thought that possibly, possibly, she could still change her life. That she could get all that she wanted. There’s nothing she can say to excuse that.

Returning to her table, Emma quietly drops into her seat. A waitress comes by, and she orders for both of them a simple plate of toast and eggs.

Outside, the lights that dangle over Granny’s porch flickers and trembles against the wind. A street sign wobbles, then turns its yellow warning to the other side.

A shadow slips over her.

Blinking, Emma looks up just in time to see Regina settling into August’s empty chair, an expensive-looking black coat settling across her folded knees.

“Regina.” Despite everything, a rush of warmth surges in Emma’s chest. She smiles. “What are you doing here?”

“I was going to run by the office to get a few files I forgot I needed to review by Monday,” Regina tucks her slightly damp, curly hair self-consciously behind both her ears, and then does it at least two more times before her curly hair stays. “Then, well,” She waves her hand vaguely, “I saw you, and I thought I’d say hello.”

Incredibly, a blush dusts the tops of Regina’s cheeks. Emma can hardly believe it. Regina Mills, disreputable bad girl, and seductress _blushes_ because of a kiss?

Regina must read her mind because she immediately straightens her shoulders and arcs an eyebrow imperiously. “I hope getting coffee at Granny’s wasn’t your very important task.”

“No,” Emma musters a laugh, feeling it hitch over the tightness in her throat. “I’m not just here for the coffee.”

“Alright,” Regina says, as if she’s dropping the matter, but Emma can see her subtly scanning the diner for anyone of relative significance, which she must not find because her eyebrows become comically scrunched on her forehead.

Had she really always been this adorable? Even from the beginning?

When Regina looks at her again, Emma’s stomach flutters with the tingling memory of their kiss. Seconds pass. Both regard each other quietly. Emma looks away first, staring down at coffee and then to her hands, her knuckles now pink with how anxiously she’s been rubbing them.

“Anyway,” Emma clears her throat, “Do– uh, do you have any plans with Henry today?”

“I do, actually,” Regina answers after a quiet beat, “He’s still sleeping, of course. But I thought I’d get us some donuts, after I went to my office. I thought we might watch a movie together since it’s raining.”

“That sounds nice,” Emma nods absentmindedly. _A kiss is a big change._ She thinks _Would I really cease to exist? Just poof, gone. Just like that?_ “I’m sure he’ll love that.”

Maybe Emma’s voice sounds distant or cold because Regina goes silent. After a long moment, Regina folds her hands together and taps her thumbs together. A gesture of annoyance.

“Are you alright?” Regina asks sharply.

Emma looks up at once. In Regina’s forehead, she can see the strong vertical line between her eyebrows, the only somatic expression of her apprehension, which will only deepen as the years go on.

“I’m alright,” she tries to smile. “I’m great.”

Regina’s eyes narrow. “You’re acting very strange.”

“I’m just tired. I didn’t – uh, sleep very well. That’s all.”

Arching an eyebrow, unmoved, Regina stares at Emma with an intensity that lifts all the hair along her neck. Emma can bare only a few seconds before her eyes start to re-focus dazedly onto the space behind Regina’s head, the groups of customers and passing waitresses, the large-paneled windows through which it can be seen that the rain outside has worsened. The water almost looks like a great big sheet of water caught in the wind, whipping through houses, and flapping onto the cement. Cars slush through the streets. The clouds rumble stoically as if filled with the troubling thoughts of the trees.

“Ms. Swan,” The waspish use of her last name cuts through everything, snapping Emma’s attention back to those dark, keen eyes, “I’m not a child. You can tell me you changed your mind. I won’t make a scene.”

Emma’s heart shrinks in her chest. This would be the exact moment to save her future. Regina has even given her the opportunity to bow out gracefully, which may trample their friendship for a little while, but not forever. It’s her only choice if she ever hopes to survive the colossal mistakes she’s made.

And yet, she cannot even imagine saying it. She cannot think of the words without her vision blurring and spotting with black. Her heart trembles, a tremendous feeling gathering painfully in her throat. 

“No,” she rushes forward to grip Regina’s hands with her own, “I’m sorry. I know I’m acting weird. It’s not because of you.”

Regina’s stony eyes flick across her face, from side to side. Before Emma can even start to explain herself, a shadow darkens their table.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” August sighs gruffly.

Regina eyes flash up to the man beside them. Immediately, her eyebrows draw together into a fierce line.

“Excuse me?” Regina’s glare sharpens dangerously as she looks him up and down, “Who the hell are you? I’ve never even seen you before.”

“That’s right, you haven’t,” August puts a hand on Emma’s shoulder to balance himself and shifts carefully out of the busy aisle. Regina immediately takes in the contact — Emma watches how it changes her face. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, your Majesty, I’d like to sit back down in my seat.”

Regina’s face goes slack. “What did you just call me?”

“August.” Emma murmurs worriedly.

“Your Majesty,” August repeats with that boyish charming smile of his, “Now. Would you mind?”

Narrowed eyes cut to Emma, “Who is this man?”

“He’s –uh, a friend,” Emma trips uneasily over her words, which only sharpens the intensity in Regina’s eyes.

“How long has he been here? What is he doing in my town?”

“I’ve been here a little while, your Majesty,” August grunts as he bends to pick up his own cup of coffee from the table. “And I’m here for Emma, which, by the way…We still have quite a bit to talk about. Don’t we, Swan?”

Dead air sits between them.

“I see,” Regina answers at last. Her eyes are hot as coals.

As she stands, she slides her coat smoothly on her shoulders. Without another word, she turns towards the door. She doesn’t look at Emma again, not even once as she pushes through the door, and cuts into the story air. The wind slams the door firmly shut behind her, hard enough to make the wooden frame rattle.

August whistles softly and sits back down in his seat. The silence rings in Emma’s ears as she watches Regina’s dark figure slip through the rain like a needle in fabric.

Tentatively, after a moment, the scattered guests around her pick up their forgotten conversation.

“You really are something.” August sighs around his coffee cup. Shaking his head, he takes a bite of toast, probably cold now, “I mean, really. Going after the Evil Queen? You really couldn’t have done worse.”

“August,” Emma chokes, “Just…shut up.”

Through her blurry eyes, she can see August’s face slowly wrinkle with concern, but she can’t focus on it. A flood is pushing against her ribs, pressing hotly behind her eyes. She leans against the table and puts her palms to her forehead.

“Emma, you must know that this puts you in enormous danger,” August reaches over to put a warm palm against her hand, the texture of his skin strangely course, like sand. His knuckles stand out beneath his skin like knots. “It’s time for you to think about what is at stake here, if you’re not careful.”

“Alright,” she says, and pulls her hand away after a beat.

Rain picks up outside, tapping against the glass. Outside, the fog has advanced to the windows, cupping around the trees and houses like pond water. Though the fog is nearly too thick to see through, Emma can’t help but look for Regina’s dark coat and steely shoulders in all the quick darting figures that cross across the storefront.

“I think we should set a few ground rules for your remaining time here. To make sure you don’t erase yourself from existence,” August picks at the last of his toast and then raps his knuckles against the tabletop when she doesn’t look back. “You might want to write them down.”

Slowly, pulling her attention from the front of the store, Emma reaches for the black pen in her shirt pocket.

“Yeah,” she mumbles, “Sure.”

***

_ Ground Rules _ _: November 17 th _

  1. Never tell anyone that you’re from the future (people who know the possibility of time travel are small exceptions)
  2. Never create a situation that would be impossible in your future context. (Snow White’s death, saving Graham’s life, etc.)
  3. Small changes to your future are alright, but nothing that would hugely shift your circumstances. (aka: having a relationship with Regina Mills)



August had made her underline that last part twice.

When the waitress came up with the check, August fumbles around his empty coat pockets for a little while, and though the growing distress on his face looks convincing, Emma knows that three weeks in a nice bed and breakfast is a pricy stunt for a writer, and that even a smoothly executed con is not done without shame, not even when its successful. She would know, she had more than once sat in a warm breakfast place just like this and went through every single one of her tricks until the check was waved away.

“I got it,” Emma reaches for her wallet, smiling, a peculiar warmth for August blooming in her chest. In another life, they could have been siblings.

When she leaves Granny’s, she spots the Mayor’s car still parked nearby, and despite rule number 3, the thread of her very existence, and the particularly grueling look of judgement on August face, Emma still finds herself making her way towards the Mayor’s office.

The doors to City Hall aren’t locked, but none of the lights are on, which gives the entranceway and stairwell a dark, partially submerged look, as if successfully flooded by the rain.

When she ambles up the stair to the Mayor’s office, she nearly misses Regina entirely. Though her desk is empty, one more sweep of the room stops Emma cold. Regina is in the corner, sitting impossibly still on the small black leather couch as she looks out the window.

It is as if Regina walked into the room, sat down, and turned suddenly to stone. Her gloves are folded neatly on her lap, but otherwise it looks as if she has not moved once upon sitting down. Her coat, still neatly drawn around her waist, has dripped a significant amount of water onto the floor beside her heels.

Stopping by the entrance, Emma stands breathlessly in the silence. She puts her hand on the wall, and thinks about knocking, and then decides against it. Regina has eyes all over her head. She knows whose here.

Not long after, Regina raises her head.

“Was that the man whose been vandalizing the bridge,” she asks.

Of all the possible conversations Emma imagined in the last thirty minutes, she had not quite imagined this one.

“What?” she asks puzzled, and then noticing the flex of Regina’s fingers, clambers over herself, “Of course not. Regina, why would I even —“

“Then how is it that a complete stranger with absolutely no knowledge of this town, call me _that_?”

Fleetingly, in panic, Emma nearly claims ignorance, but Regina knows how to bruise a lie until the truth comes out, so with a huff Emma drags a hand through her hair, “I’m sure he just wanted to provoke you. Not for any reason you’d think — that’s just how he is, he’s a—“

“He shouldn’t even _know_ about that stupid fairytale theory!”

“He just –” Don’t say it, “I – it, it was just…” Oh god, don’t say it. “It was just a joke …between us.” Oh god. 

A frigid silence passes. When Regina finally looks at Emma again, it is with a deep, unnerving emptiness.

“A joke?” she echoes finally.

Emma closes her eyes. It’s not what she wanted to say, at all, but it is the only version of the truth that can still fit into the particular puzzle she has made of their lives.

“Yeah,” she heaves out a breath and drags a hand through her hair again, “Before you and me really…you know, got to know each other, I’d sometimes call him with up with stories about you.”

Regina arches a single eyebrow, but otherwise her expression remains blank, wholly indifferent.

“I see.

“It’s just when I was angry, and it was stupid, and it didn’t mean anything.”

Regina nods, although it is clear by her expression that the gesture is not meant to convey any understanding or acknowledgment to Emma’s words. In moments of extreme anger or despair, Regina has a habit of withdrawing to a private conversation that she has with herself, a conversation which Emma could only guess at, though she suspects it has something to do with people and their everlasting disappointments, to which other people’s arguments had no power, though they sometimes contributed to it in a way that only Regina could understand.

“Regina,” Emma reaches out tentatively.

Regina slips back an inch. She looks up to meet Emma’s eyes.

”So, A small smile curls up beneath Regina’s mouth. “All this time... when I’ve reached out to you, and you’ve helped…did you just turn around to laugh at me the moment I was gone? With _him_.”

“ _No_!” Emma exclaims _, “_ I’ve barely spoken to him in weeks. We’re not -- he’s just a friend –”

“Yes, and what a good friend he must be,” Regina’s lips look dark and beautiful as they curl from her teeth, “He’s been here for nearly three weeks. I checked with Granny. She recalls you going to his room only once, but I suppose the beds _are_ a little too stiff there, and really there’s no shortage of places as long as you’re ready to feel a little rough—”

“Regina, _God_ , don’t turn this into something it’s not.”

“Then what is it? You’re telling me you’re not sleeping with him? Fine, I’ll bite. Why, then, when I was over last night, and _wanting_ you, you stopped us so that you could go see him in the morning?” Regina’s eyes flash hotly, “Are you dating him? Is that why?”

“No, God, _ew_ , Regina. I don’t feel that way with him, and I’m sure he doesn’t feel that way with me.”

Regina scoffs, “Oh, _please_.”

“I mean it,” Folding one leg over the couch arm, the other still on the floor, Emma dips down until she catches those dark eyes again. “We spent time in foster homes together. _Briefly_ ,” she huffs, “He took the first chance he could to get out of hell. But we knew each other at the beginning, and I guess that still counts for something.”

A tremble of cool air passes between them, flushed in by the open door.

“The beginning?”

Emma can see the thoughts turning in Regina’s head. Terrifying thoughts that now splinter with new possibilities at an impossible speed.

“Yeah, the beginning,” Emma sighs. There is nothing she can do to protect Regina from this realization. “He was the one that found me. When I was a baby.”

“I see,” Regina nods to herself again, and loses herself briefly to the powerful churn of her own terror. “And now he’s here in Storybrook. With you.”

“Yes.”

As a hand splays along Regina’s forehead, her neck folds briefly into the desire to simply rest in her hands and hide from any other terrifying possibilities that could arise in this conversation. Then, with a sharp breath, Regina looks back up at Emma, more deadened than before.

“What is he doing here, then?” Regina whispers, and trembles for an entirely different reason. “What are you two doing together?”

Emma can see in her eyes her real fear: _do you know? Are you here to destroy everything?_

What would be crueler? To lie and reassure Regina for the moment, only for it to tumble down in another few weeks? Or expose the truth entirely and face the mess together.

But she has ground rules.

With a sigh, Emma says simply. “He’s just here to see me. That’s all.”

“And joke about the Evil Queen, apparently,” Regina intones roughly, her voice the same consistency as gravel. “And here I thought …” she shakes her head with a small laugh, “I thought it was possible that you were on my side.”

The urge to declare herself on the Evil Queen’s side is so enormous and sudden that she nearly says so; might have even promised fealty if not for a scrap of truth getting stuck in her throat.

Feebly, Emma says instead “I will always have your back. I swear to you. Even when we fight.”

“ _Even when we fight,”_ The mimicking tone of voice is nearing cruel, but Emma can see how Regina’s eyes pin and sharpen on Emma’s face, searching for hidden meaning in her words. “Is this the part where you tell me that ‘everything will work out alright?’. Even if we fight, even if Henry hates me, even when you take everything from me, it’ll all work out just fine. You’ve got my back. Do you really think your words mean _anything_ to me? They don’t. Not when I know you’ll just change them when the time comes,” she spits.

“ _Regina_ ”

Reaching out, Emma tries to grab onto an arm or wrist or anything solid enough to tug Regina from this spiral, but Regina slinks her back against the couch with a flinch.

“Yes, I know. You keep your promises. The Savior always does,” Regina sneers, and her next laugh comes out with the same disorderly brightness of a glass shattering against the ground, “You know what? I’m starting to see the humor in it. The Evil Queen in a little town in Maine? Helpless for our poor darling Sheriff who just wants to save everyone from her horrible clutches.” Her smile broadens devilishly, “Are they as funny now with me as they were with him?”

Emma sighs and drags her fingers quickly through her hair, trying desperately to think of something, anything, that could bring them down from the devastating realizations that have already been pushed to the surface, floating now below a thin layer of ice — the curse, Emma’s knowing of it, what August is really doing here. 

“It’s not like that,” Emma says at last, and sighs when Regina’s mouth curves dangerously. _“Come on_. I know you’ve talked about me to other people, and I _know_ it isn’t all flattering. You pissed me off, so I talked shit. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than that,” she tries her best to smile. “You even got a whole newspaper article written about me. Remember that?”

A dark eyebrow arches, and suddenly Regina is standing up on slow legs. She approaches with the same silent, slow grace of a panther and stops mere inches away. The air hums with the soft intimacy of imminent heartbreak.

“Yes, I do,” Regina stares up at her with black agate eyes, cold as ice. “But everything I’ve ever said about you was true.”

Eyebrows arch with one astounded blink. “ _Regina_.”

“Was it not? I took all my information from your own records. I don’t see how that’s the same as inflating my son’s fairytale fantasy,” Regina answers coldly. Then she arches her eyebrow, “Unless of course you think everything about the curse is true.”

A lie stalls in her throat, too dry to pass, and though it is only a few seconds of silence, a half-dozen heartbeats, it shifts the air permanently.

By the time Emma musters a “No, of course not,” as dryly as a cough, Regina has already taken a stunned step back.

“You do,” Regina utters incredulously. “Don’t you? You really think I’m the Evil Queen.”

“ _No_. Of course not.”

“You think I’m evil,” Something of a laugh passes out of Regina’s mouth, but it changes once in the air, and her eyes well fully with tears. “You think I’m a monster.”

“No — I _know_ you’re not a monster.”

Her eyes darken. “Then you don't know anything.”

"I know this,” Emma rushes forward to cradle her face softly. "You're not a monster. You’re Regina. You’re Henry’s _Mom_ ,” Regina’s eyes flutter shut, her mouth wrinkling with the suppression of a snarl or whimper. Tenderly, smoothing her thumbs along the tops of Regina’s cheeks, she bends to kiss the corner of her eye, moving softly along her cheek, whispering with each kiss. “You’re not a monster. I know you. You’re a devoted mother. You’re so quick to empathize, even when you’re not given the chance to. You’re intelligent and witty and constantly learning. You’re capable of so much good.”

Regina’s breath thickens. The sound of breathing against Emma’s ear becomes as quiet and constant as the blood rushing to her head. Gently, Regina grips the back of Emma’s elbows.

“I know you,” Emma wrinkles a kiss against the hard-cornered side of Regina’s mouth. “You’re not a monster.”

Regina’s hands flex around Emma’s elbows. A tight frantic grip. Another long, wavering silence extends between them. When Regina speaks again, her voice sounds painfully gripped, as if it were being squeezed by her own fingers.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

Emma leans back to look at Regina’s face, but Regina’s eyes are closed. Her face is soft, vulnerable, anxious to be reassured.

Gently, she cradles Regina’s cheek with a hand, “I do.”

After a moment, Regina silently leans into Emma again. She rests the side of her forehead against Emma’s brow, breathing deeply as if to gain some control over herself again. Her fingers flex briefly around Emma’s elbows, and then she raises a hand to grip the nape of Emma’s neck.

Titling her head, Regina puts her lips to Emma’s ear, “Oh but you’re wrong,” she breathes against her ear, “I _am_ a monster.”

“Regina,” Emma breathes, and then gasps, feeling the hot flick of a tongue against her ear. She grips Regina tighter. “Regina.”

“You have no idea just how horrible I can be,” Regina smooths her hands down the curve of Emma’s back, moving down her rear and drawing her hips close to her own, “How cruel I’ve been. You’re so kind, so good. So strong,” A hot breath flares against the soft underside of Emma’s jaw before Regina sucks the skin into her mouth, pressing a hot trail of kisses down her neck, “You couldn’t possibly imagine the things that I have done,” she sighs tremulously, “All the things that I’ve destroyed, just to get what I want.”

Emma gapes soundlessly at the sensation of teeth along her neck. Trembling, she holds tightly to Regina’s shoulders.

“Emma,” Regina’s voice wavers, suddenly full of tears, “You have no idea who I am. You have no idea what I have done.”

Gripping Regina’s black silky hair with a fist, Emma pulls her back enough to peer into her face. There, as Regina blinks at her with a stunned, teary-eyes, Emma brushes the tips of her fingers along Regina’s cheek. She wipes a tear from the tiny lines crinkling in the corner Regina’s eye.

“Maybe you’re the one who has no idea,” Emma whispers against Regina’s mouth, close enough to feel her lips spread against her own in a soft sigh. “I know you better than you think.”

For a moment, there is only the sound of their breathing between them. Against their lips, the familiar spark of magic buzzes between them, causing them both to moan.

Then, tightly gripping Emma’s hair, Regina kisses her back.

Long gone are the soft gentle kisses. This time, Regina’s kisses are hungry. She pushes against Emma desperately, her mouth hot and wet and loud. She guides Emma towards her desk with her hands and her hips until Emma’s legs are bumping against a sharp wooden edge, then, sliding her hands down to the back of Emma’s knees, she yanks them up sharply so that Emma falls back with a startled yelp onto Regina’s desk.

All the air leaves Emma’s lungs as Regina hauls her body to the edge of the desk again, grinding their hips together for a delicious moment before Regina covers Emma’s body with her own.

Pencils scatter onto the floor, knocked away by a reckless elbow. A picture of Henry clatters on the desk and is put half-hazardously down on the chair beside them.

Breathing sticks heavily in her throat as Emma drags her hands up and down Regina’s silky shirt, hugging her close. Moaning, Regina hungrily roves down the side of Emma’s jaw, down her neck to the sensitive place behind her ear, leaving tacky smudges of lipstick as she goes. Her hands slip beneath Emma’s sweater, and find with questing sparks of her fingernails the swell of her breasts.

Emma can’t believe the sounds they’re making. The hot rush of their breathing fills the air, along with the slap of contact between their bodies, the slick sound of something glossy – magazines? flyers? –wrinkling beneath Emma’s squirming body, a motion that is hastily quickened by Regina’s hips. And all the smaller, more desperate sounds that are so enmeshed between their mouths it is hard to tell who is actually making them.

Regina slides her fingers up over Emma’s breasts, thumbing her nipple over the thin material of her bra. Groaning, Emma slides her knees around Regina’s hips, squeezing her urgently as Regina scrapes her teeth along Emma’s neck.

“God.” Emma moans and tilts her head back.

Regina follows the movement hungrily, kissing down the slope of her jaw, over the bottom of her chin down to the vulnerable curve of her throat. The kisses are hungry, frantic, and leave behind soft sparks of magic with her every touch.

Emma lets herself be kissed hungrily, enjoying the way Regina’s body squirms closer with every new adjustment. Emma slides her hands up the smooth curve of Regina’s back, feeling the familiar tense muscles in Regina’s shoulders. As Regina kisses down her neck, a quieter memory blooms in Emma’s mind, seeping over from her quickly receding future to the past: a quiet afternoon in Regina’s office, two drinks poured, and only one touched because Regina is too busy rubbing in vain at the back of her neck where the tension of a whole lifetime sits. In another time, far away from this one, Emma decided to put her drink down and stand behind Regina’s side of the couch so that she can put her hands on her shoulders. Though she knew nothing about relieving muscle tension, she had a general idea of what felt good and an earnest desire to help, which ended up being more than enough.

Now, just as before, Emma’s fingers are riding up the last few knots of Regina’s spine to the base of her skull, gently kneading at a lifetime of tension that closes around the bone.

She hadn’t fully realized what she was doing – lost in the memory she was -- until a sigh interrupts their next kiss. Regina stiffens at the feeble sound she’s made, and then seems to surrender to it, softening into the curve of Emma’s body.

Letting out a low, deep sigh, Regina settles he cheek against Emma’s.

“What’s this?” Emma chuckles against Regina’s ear. “Don’t tell me a little massage is all it takes to take you down, Madame Mayor.”

A low, deep laugh vibrates between their bodies.

“Is this how you’re planning on defeating me, then Savior?” Regina whispers against her neck, close enough for Emma to feel her smile spread. “How terrifying.” She says,

“Sure,” she says, and presses a little more deeply, sighing when Regina mouths the curve of her neck. “I’ll defeat you anytime, Madame Mayor. Only have to ask.” 

Humming softly, Regina adjusts to kiss her fully on the mouth, gentled now by tenderness. Magic sparks once more, and Regina hums contently.

A moment passes, and then another. The kissing goes on, slower now, so that Emma can taste mint and the faintly metallic tang of Regina’s lipstick.

Finally, with a sigh, Emma cants her head to the side, avoiding another kiss. She can feel lips slide against her cheek before Regina pulls back to blink dazedly down at her, her eyes dark and intense.

“Hey,” Emma breathes.

“Hey,” Regina says, still sounding a little dazed.

Softly, Emma tucks a few strands of dark hair behind Regina’s ear, and smiles at the flutter of Regina’s long dark eyelashes. 

“What is it?” Regina whispers and leans her cheek against Emma’s hand.

“I uh…I’m kind of a goner for you.” At Regina’s startled blink, Emma’s throat closes. Sensing a new stop to her life-long cruise through rejection, Emma shrugs defensively and looks out towards the edge of the dark office where small incidents of rainy light flicker along the wall. From beyond the window, through the cloudy cover of fog, a streetlight winks in and out like a distant lighthouse. “I just think you should know. So you’d know what…what this would mean to me…” she clears roughness from her throat, “If we continued.”

Another long silence passes. Regina doesn’t move above her, not even to shift her weight slightly from a less uncomfortable angle. When Emma finally looks at Regina, she blinks in surprise at the unnerving intensity in those dark eyes.

After a moment, Regina brushes the tips of her fingers along Emma’s cheek, pausing on the corner of her mouth.

“I…” Regina begins tentatively, and frowns if it caused her physical pain to be vulnerable in front of anyone. “I really like you, too.”

Oh. Her heart flutters.

“Really?” Emma asks.

Regina twitches against her. “Yes,” she growls and shifts her weight up onto her elbows so that she can glare fully down into Emma’s face. “I don’t know why you need me to say it. It should have already been obvious, considering,” she waves her hand vaguely to refer, Emma supposes, to the last few minutes of heated kissing. There had been some tender moments, sure, but…

Deep lines bracket around Regina’s mouth with a vague look of embarrassment.

It takes another moment.

Emma gapes, “You mean our fight? Regina, when exactly should that have become obvious to me? Did you somehow express your feelings at some point between all the times you were biting my head off?”

“I didn’t bite your head off,” Regina huffs down at her, “I just don’t like to share.”

“ _God_ , Regina,” Emma exhales a soft helpless laugh, “Are you always this romantic?”

“Unfortunately,” Sighing down as if for another kiss, Regina gives Emma’s lips a teasing scrape of her teeth instead, “Now, since I do really like you, I think we should stop ourselves here.”

“Oh” Emma blinks back her surprise. “Alright.”

Regina’s mouth curves into something a little evil as she bends to Emma’s ear, “I just want to have you in my bed,” she purrs, “So that I can take my time with you.”

Emma’s mouth goes dry.

“Oh,” she breathes, “Okay.”

Shifting onto her elbows, Regina leans down to put one more kiss against Emma’s lips, which is then lengthened well beyond brevity with soft contented little kisses.

“I don’t know what the hell I’m thinking,” Regina whispers against her mouth, “You’re most certainly going to ruin me.”

Fluttering her eyes closed, Emma sighs with a kiss of her own, “I know the feeling.”

***

“What’s her name again?” Mary Margaret squints at the screen, and rests her chin against her wine glass, “I feel like they keep saying it, but it just goes right over my head every time.”

“It’s Darius, I think.” Emma lays her cheek on the couch cushion beside her mom’s leg, her legs tucked over the couch’s arm. It is a position far too intimate for the person she was years ago, but Mary Margaret hasn’t made a comment yet to express any surprise if she feels it. On the tv, a romantic comedy is playing out its love story with varying levels of success.

“Right. I like the actress though.”

“Yeah,” Emma circles her gin and tonic, so it rings with ice. “You’d think they’d pick someone better than Mark Duplass as the love interest, though.”

“ _Right_?” her mother exclaims. “My god. Of all the men in the world.”

“He just looks so _dopey_ next to her. I don’t get it. She’s so intense and beautiful.”

“That’s how so many of these love stories go,” her mother sighs mournfully.

They watch the screen quietly. She’d missed this so much after the curse broke. It was a routine that her and her mother never picked up again once the curse broke, even when things settled down. There’d been the baby, and new curses, and villains, and that prickly persistent feeling that she’s been left on her own again, and suddenly she could no longer sit on a stupid oatmeal colored couch with her mother to watch a movie or complain about how beautiful women kept falling into relationships with insufficient men. If her mother were here now, instead of Mary Margaret, she would laugh and drag fingers through Emma’s hair until all the tangles cleared away. That is the missing element, Emma supposes. Snow is braver with her love. She never misses an opportunity to hug or kiss Emma or tickle her beneath her chin.

But Marty Margaret is the only version of her mother who persistently makes time for her. In returning to the past, she had exchanged a distant, but loving mother for a stellar roommate who had no reason to love her so openly.

The love is still there, sure. But hidden behind a firm wall of shyness.

Emma watches quietly as the characters on the screen grow fonder of one another; their budding love is obviously doomed by a lie, only clumsily covered. Unbelievably, there’s even a hint of time travel, although it seems only to be the high-strung ravings of a grieving man. That, at least, is a relief. Emma isn’t sure if she’s up for watching thematic elements of her own life unfold before her very eyes.

“What if you wanted something that could potentially…” Emma squints uncertainly, “Well, more like definitely wreck your whole life?”

Mary Margret regards her silently.

“Does it make you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then there you go,” Mary Margaret determines with an effortless smile.

“Really?” Emma can’t help but chuckle. She tilts her head to look up at her mother, “Mary Margret, I’m talking about something that could seriously wrecked my whole life. Happy or not, wouldn’t the risk be too big?”

“Emma. Honestly,” her mother scoffs, and sips her wine. “No risk is _that_ big.”

***

Sunday morning passes with small chores that busy Emma’s hands. The sky is heavily white, the clouds so high in the air that they appear almost are as plain and featureless as a sheet of paper. In afternoon, as Emma finishes off a report she’s been putting off in the comfort of her own home, her phone buzzes softly on the countertop.

Any lingering hope that she may hear Regina’s rich, warm voice dies at the scratchy timber of August’s dry throat. “Can you meet me?” he asks distractedly, as if he were on the move. “We need to go through possible ways to get you home.”

This work is necessary, she knows, yet the urge to groan as if he’d just asked her to finish her homework is a hard one to flatten.

“Sure.” She keeps her voice as smooth and clear as an iron. Just then, a buzz vibrates against her ear. “Uh -- hold on”

On the screen, a text flashes back at her:

Regina [11:35am]: _Are you free to see a movie with Henry and me?_

Heart fluttering, she quickly types out. [11:35] _When_?

Regina [11:35am]: _12:30._

Returning the phone back to her ear, Emma asks as innocently as she can. “So when do you want to see me?”

“As soon as possible, Emma.” August answers with the same tone of voice that a disappointed teacher might use to deflect a curious but misplaced question, “Why? Does getting home mess with your time with Your Majesty?”

“Don’t call her that,” At August’s obnoxious scoff, she sighs, “Seriously, she almost bit off my head the last time you called her that. She certainly won’t hesitate to bite off yours if she suspects you know.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m quite confident that she’ll just kill you,” There is a sullen gruffness in his voice that kills any levity in his joke. “Meet me in fifteen.”

At the sound of dead air, Emma sighs.

_[11:37] Can it be later? I’d love to see you and Henry, but I’ve got plans_

Immediately, three dots pop up. And then disappear. They appear and disappear twice before Emma chances returning her phone to her back pocket. She’s gone no more than a few steps when she feels it buzz again.

Regina _: [11:40] 4pm. I’m not pushing it any later than that. You can join us or not._

Emma scoffs. This Regina can be such a _grump_. Well, Regina at any point in time, really. But there is something persistently prickly about Regina, pre-curse breaking. She has the air of someone who is always on the way to someplace else, to which any delay or shift of plans is an incredible inconvenience.

 _[11:40] I’ll be there_. She types, and resists tacking on a heart in case the offer can still be rescinded.

As it turns out, August planned for more than simply another talk at Granny’s. After picking him up at a street corner, Emma soon finds herself driving along a weedy, dirt road all the way to the edge of the forest, grimacing as low-awning branches from nearby trees sweep against the sides of her car. When the trees become too thick to drive between, they then proceed on foot to the wishing well, which might have been a relatively safe trail to take back in early October, but in late November, the dirt has frozen and thawed over so many times it is soupy with wet leaves and dead grass.

Emma slips more than once. The wind is cold and bitter as it slips beneath her jacket, and with her jeans soaked from below the knees with dirty water, a pellet of anger begins to form in Emma’s throat.

“You know, I’ve already been to the wishing well,” Emma hollers over the icy wind, “Like, a thousand times.”

August doesn’t even glance back. “How about since you’ve been in the past?” he asks.

Emma grumbles.

The day has been mostly dry except for a short sprinkle early in the morning, so the dirt is not as wet as it could have been. Still, the ground is soft enough to squelch beneath Emma’s boots, and sometimes slides unpredictably off trail towards the marsh-like weeds that grow between rocks and logs. Water sits in still, tranquil pools, speckled with blue and green algae. The smell of damp wood and moss sharpens the air.

By the time they reach the wishing well, Emma’s mood has sunk well beyond recovery. After trekking through a field of burdocks and dead grass, her jeans are wrinkled and heavy with water and her fingers have lost feeling at the tips.

The well looks just as unimpressive as it had the first time. It’s wooden roof has missing boards, and the smooth grey stones have been overcome by moss and crawling vines. It looks small and forgotten.

August peers down the deep well thoughtfully with one hand on his chin and his elbow couched by his other arm.

A minute passes. Emma waits, glaring at the back of August’s buffed leather jacket.

“I hope you took me out here to do more than just stare down a well.” She snaps when she can no longer take the silence.

August merely hums, a faintly conciliatory sound.

“I’m assuming you already know about the legend surrounding this well?”

“Yeah,” she huffs, “The well has mystical waters that possess the power to return to you whatever is lost, blah, blah, blah.”

“More or less,” August smiles at her briefly, “Alright. So, tell me how you got in the past.”

Any hope that this might only be a small excursion outside simmers into disappointment.

“Like I said before,” Emma cannot help but glance at her watch, keeping track of the passing time, “I had been thinking about how unhappy I was. I was wishing that I could go back and change the past somehow, so that my life could turn out differently.”

“And where were you?”

“Uh. At the station?”

“And when you entered into the past, where were you?”

“Same place.”

August nods, and absently rubs his chin, the prickly sound of his beard making Emma twitch irritably.

For a while, no one speaks. Around them, the pine trees stand with a similar solemnity, as if they were enormous guardians observing the world with ambivalence. Far beneath the ground, there is the sound of water moving.

When the wind picks up, ruffling Emma’s jacket, she irritably shoves her hands into the fronts of her pockets.

“Do you think we could hurry up and get through the part about why we’re standing in front of a wishing well?” Emma snaps.

“Sure,” August says easily, “Why do you think you’re here?”

God, he’s annoying. “Because I made a wish that brought me here, and normally, with wish-based magic, all you have to do is reverse the wish by wanting it undone. Which, I’ve already done, and it hasn’t worked, so we’re here to try to manually wish away my mistakes,” She grimaces, “But since you’re not having me do anything but stare at the stupid thing, I suspect it can’t be as simple as that.”

August blinks at her with surprise. “That’s right.”

She can’t help but glow with some pleasure. Regina would be proud of her. Probably.

“So why am I not making a wish right now?” Emma asks. At August’s grimace, she puffs, “Don’t tell me it’s because secretly I’m not ready to go back yet. I’m bored with my future, I know I am, alright? But I _know_ I don’t want to ruin my life. And there have definitely been moments where I’ve very deeply wished to be back already, and it just hasn’t worked.”

“Alright, alright,” August waves her away as if she were a sluggishly persistent fly. “I’m not blaming you or anything. It’s likely that your wish didn’t work for a very simple reason. There’s no magic here. Your wish isn’t powerful enough to transfer you back.”

“Okay. Alright.” Sighing, Emma rubs her cold fingers along the side of her jaw, and then down her neck, easing the tension there, “So you think the wishing well will help me with that?”

“Potentially. It should still have some of its magical properties attached.”

“Okay.” Emma glances at the somber looking wishing well, it’s stones a grayish hue after so many years of rain and dust. “So. Are…are you saying I should make a wish now?” Guiltily, her mind flashes to the movie date with Regina.

“We can try it,” August shrugs, and sticks his hands into the front of his jeans as he stares down the rough, near thousand feet drop into the earth, “The wishing well’s magic is located in the water itself. You won’t be able to simply make a wish near it, you’ll need to have made some kind of contact with the water.”

“Oh. Okay,” she looks over August’s serious expression, feeling as if she has missed a significant piece of information. “Should I drop something in there?”

A beat of passive silence. Then a sigh.

“Yeah,” he rubs the back of his neck, “Sure. We can try that. You got something important of yours to drop into it?”

Huffing, Emma fishes around in her jacket.

In her left pocket, a hole. In the right, a parking ticket dated nearly a full month before she moved to Storybook. She squints at it with frowning interest.

“It has to be more significant to you than a ticket.” August laughs. “How about your watch?”

“My watch?” Emma grimaces, “It’s a gift from my dad.”

“All the better.”

Emotion pulls down on Emma’s lips, but after a moment she works the watch off her wrist, thumbs its round face once and lay it flat on her palm. Her first gift from her father, and the only one that landed with real success. She had loved it immediately; its maple saddle bands, its broad face and zebrawood lining, its sturdy accountability. She never needed to correct it – she set it once, and it kept track of time without a hiccup of doubt, holding each second of every day accountable.

Wrestling back a quiver of emotion, Emma wipes a fleck of dirt off the glass with a quick, industrial swipe of her thumb.

“Alright,” she clears her throat, “So. I just have to wish myself back, and drop it in?”

“Hold it close and think about something that will draw you back to your present. It will need a very strong feeling to get you there.”

“Oh.” She sighs. “Okay.”

Pressing her watch close, the slightly unsteady pulse of her wrist flutters. For all the disappointments in her future, it didn’t lack feeling; it ran like a dangerous rail of electricity in an underground track that crackled loudly beneath all the other things she’d allowed to make up her life. Her father’s face, aged a few more years, has the same cheerful, geniality as the man he’d been during the curse, but steadier, somehow. He had the same calm, easy air of a horse plodding down a road. Her mother, how her soft cool hand feels on a hot, tear-stained cheek. Henry’s sixteen-year-old face wrinkled with love and embarrassment. The way Regina curses and briskly rolls up her sleeves when she’s struggling with a tough spell. How her hand will touch Emma’s back or arm in passing. Those clunky black glasses she’d never wear in front of anyone else but Emma and Henry. The deep, rich sound of her laugh when she’s laughing at Emma.

Her heart balloons against her ribs. In the center of her ribs, her heart pushes towards her future again like the arrow of a compass finding north. Emma sighs.

“Ready?” August asks.

Emma nods, “Ready.”

Tilting her palm, Emma lets the watch drop.

She watches as it slips into the dark solidly as a rock in a pond. The fall is far greater than Emma had imagined. For a moment, she thinks that the well must simply go on forever, that there is nothing so soft as water to separate one world from the next. Then, finally, through a great distance, there is a soft _plop_ and the ripple of water.

Emma closes her eyes. And waits.

And waits.

But nothing happens. Nothing prickles across her skin, nothing sparks or swells around her, and when she opens her eyes again, August is still there. He stares down at the well with an unmoved expression, neither worried nor surprised.

“So…it didn’t work.”

“No, it didn’t,” August rubs his chin. “I’m not surprised. There is so little magic here, it will need more than just a watch to get a powerful enough grip on you,” Emma is about to bristle for the completely unnecessary loss of her watch when August says, “I suspect that if we want this to work, you’ll have to jump in the well yourself..”

“ _What_?” Emma gapes, “Jump down _there_? August, I will absolutely drown.”

“Probably not,” August assures, “But obviously I’ll have to look into it more to make sure you won’t. But the well _should_ be powerful enough to carry you back to your present, wherever you were before you left.”

“Well fuck.”

“It will probably be okay.”

“The amount of times you’ve said _probably_ isn’t making me feel better,” Emma snaps uneasily, and rubs the soft crinkle from her forehead. Staring down the well, she tries to imagine a safe swell of magic rising up to meet her, but all she can imagine is the long drop down, a tunnel of smooth stones and the flat black water below. Hard as cement.

Shuddering, Emma hides her shaking hands into the jacket pockets, “So, I jump down this well, and return to my own life. What about my past self? Will she return through the well, as well?”

“No. No, once you touch the water, you will be returned to the place you were when you left, and your past self will be returned to the same place she disappeared from. She’ll probably be a little disoriented and confused in why it’s suddenly November, and not early-October but..”

“So she won’t remember anything?”

“No, and thank god for it,” August grumbles, directing a surly glance in her direction, “It’s your biggest protection against your future dissolving in front of you. You just better hope that your Majesty doesn’t feel hurt by the sudden brush off and decides to kill you for it.”

Oh..

Oh no.

August must notice her expression because something in him softens. He shifts a little closer and puts a hand against her shoulder, squeezing softly. When Emma looks up, she finds a soft sort of sympathy.

“I would recommend you end your relationship with Regina before you leave. Knowing Your Majesty, she will seek out answers herself, and when past Emma reacts as any normal person would act when someone they hate suddenly believes they are in a relationship…,” Drifting off uncomfortably, August shrugs and pats her arm again, “Well, I’m sure you won’t like the result.”

“Right,” Emma says dismally, “I know. I’ll end it.”

“By the end of this week.”

“Okay.” She croaks, “By the end of this week.”

“Maybe you’ll be able to salvage the relationship in the future.”

“I doubt it. Thanks though,” she pats his arm, “Thanks for everything.”

She glances down at her wrist, and then sighs, plucking out her phone. It’s nearly 3pm.

“Are we done here?”

August nods thoughtfully. “Yes, for now.”

The walk back goes by more quickly, but still by the time she’s driving August back to his room, it is nearing 3:30pm, and there is dirt on her knees and a few leaves caught in her hair, and no time to go back to her apartment and change.

It’s a quiet kind of agony walking up to Regina’s fancy mansion in dirt-stained jeans and boots that squelch with her water-soaked socks. Lifting her fist to the door, Emma hesitates, and briefly considers turning around again. It would probably bomb the tentative romance she is kindling with Regina, which was probably the course of action August and Ground Rule #3 would advise to take.

Just then, the door swings open to Regina’s broad, beautiful face, who, after noting her appearance, immediately grimaces.

“Ms. Swan,” Regina makes a firm line out of her mouth, “Is there…any reason why you look like you’ve been rolling in a pig pen.”

Emma offers a weak laugh. “Just basking in childhood memories.”

The lines around Regina’s mouth deepens. She hums unconvincingly. 

From a distance, Henry’s small feet come running.

“Emma!” he calls, and then gradually slows at the sight of her, coming to a full stop at his Mom’s side. His face wrinkles. “What happened to you?”

“I’d like to know that myself,” Regina answers archly. “You look like you rolled down hill.”

Emma rolls her eyes, which is normally a dangerous habit when in front of Regina, but she can’t help it. This day has just been so long and stressful and _stupid_ , and she’s tired and cold and _she knows_ future Regina and Henry would have just laughed at her in that warm tender way that immediately made light of whatever dumb mistake she made and pulled her inside already.

“Oh my god,” Emma groans, “I went on a stupid hike through the forest. Am I going to be able to come in? Or am I too muddy to sit on your furniture.”

The moment the words leave her mouth, her heart freezes. It suddenly seems extremely likely that she’ll be told to just forget it, that the movie day just won’t work out today after all.

But Regina steps back from the door. “I have some clothes you can borrow,” she says evenly. Then, at her muddy ankles, she adds more archly, “Use my shower, as well.”

***

Fifteen minutes, Emma walks down the stairwell feeling cleaner and softer in Regina’s pajamas. She feels pleasantly tired, the kind of body-tired that surfaces after a full day of wind and cold only to find yourself in a warm house, full of light and people you love. As Emma trails down the stairwell, she can hear the sound of Regina and Henry talking quietly in the kitchen. Their conversation passes through her as a daydream might have.

“Now,” Regina wipes a floured palm along the marble counter, “Before we stretch the dough, we have to flatten it into a small disc first. With our fingers, like this,” she says and demonstrates the soft push with the tips of her fingers.

“Why can’t we just roll it out?”

“Because when we do that, all the air in the dough gets compressed. We want our pizza crust to be fluffy and soft, don’t we?”

“Yes,” Henry folds his brow with concentration as if he were working on a math problem that required patience and diligence. He spreads the dough with three very careful fingers. Regina watches him with a small smile as she moves her own dough with the smooth, absentminded ease of an expert

Henry tilts his head in consideration. “Is this good?” At her affirming hum, he nods. “What’s after that?”

“Now, my dear, we stretch the dough.”

“We’re not going to flip it?”

“We can,” Regina smiles, though Emma can tell she is already gently preparing for the inevitable mess in this scenario. “Would you like to try?”

One tenderly earnest attempt later and Henry is near tears and half-hidden in his Mom’s side as she hurriedly molds his crumpled dough back into its soft disk-like shape.

“See? It’s just as it was before,” Regina gently eases the dough back into Henry’s hands, “No need for tears, my little prince.”

With a shaky sigh, Henry nods. Then hesitantly, Henry leans his head into his Mom’s stomach. It is a small, undeniably tentative gesture, but as Regina carefully wraps her arm around his little shoulder, the look on her face is that of a drowning woman who has finally grasped in her hand the touch of land. Emma stays there, leaning against the white door frame with a warmth in her stomach like sunlight on one of Regina’s white linen shirts, a soft, dizzying kind of illumination.

On the stove, a low blue flame tickles the bottom of a small pot, which Regina occasionally checks, flushing the room with the heady smell of tomatoes and herbs. Watching them, Emma feels a sharp inner tug in her stomach, a cold pinching sensation, like watching her first ever gift from her father slip off the palm of her hand and vanish into an endless black hole.

Resting a shoulder against the doorframe, Emma watches her family until the pizzas are slid nearly into the oven. When the oven doors are closed, Regina slips her hands along the ties of her apron, forgetting her flour-covered hands, and murmurs a quiet, “Emma should be down by now,” which rings down Emma’s spine like a bow string and straightens her out instinctively, bringing Regina’s eyes unconsciously to the door.

The happy surprise that flutters across Regina’s face floods Emma with a feeling like warm water.

“I see you’ve found a way to get out of kitchen prep,” Regina arches an eyebrow at her as she slips the apron over her head and hangs it on a wooden peg, “Care to explain?”

“I decided to take on a leadership role this evening,” Emma’s heart flutters at how quickly Regina narrows her eyes, “You know, making sure you all are being safe.”

From the sink, Henry scoffs.

“My,” Regina drawls, “How brave of you.”

Emma shrugs her shoulders, smiling. _“_ Someone’s gotta do it.”

Regina merely hums and rests her hip on the counter so that she may look at Emma plainly in the solid kitchen light, seemingly for no other reason than to just to look at her with her bare feet and soft-wet hair. Her eyes are dark and soft and so very warm that fleetingly, it seems possible that whatever softness Regina feels for her might survive these coming years, might weave through time like a needle, and come out on the other side, unscathed.

“Emma, what movie do you want to watch?” Henry chirps as he buses the dirty dishes towards the sink.

“Whatever you want, kid,” When Regina clears her throat, Emma rectifies, “And whatever your Mom deems appropriate.”

She thinks the word “ _traitor_ ,” is mumbled accusingly in her direction, but as Regina directs them all towards the living room, she feels two hands slide smoothly up her back, and then slide down her arms to give her biceps a good squeeze, which seems well worth whatever fleeting betrayal her kid might feel.

After a brief scrabble on which movie they should watch _,_ Regina suggests her favorite movie, _The_ _Empire Strikes Back_ (like Emma knew she would) which Henry eagerly accepts.

As Regina and Henry set up the movie, Emma is sent off to retrieve the pizzas from the oven. By the time she returns, Henry has parked himself safely in the middle of the large couch, and his Mom has settled comfortably beside him.

“Here, we are,” Emma takes her time to straighten the little cozy beneath the hot plate as she thinks over which seat she should take.

In her own timeline, they all sat next to each other on the couch, as close as they can be to one another. It didn’t seem to matter the order. Sometimes Emma squished herself between Regina and Henry, and other times Henry sprawled over the couch while Regina’s cuddled close to Emma. It never seemed to matter the position, as long as they were close.

But here…everything is painfully new and tense.

After a beat, Emma sinks back against the arm of the couch. She glances over the top of Henry’s head to look at Regina, but Regina doesn’t look at her, her attention focused entirely on the screen.

“Alright, play it,” Henry murmurs and nuzzles into the warm space his Mom’s side.

Clearing her throat, Regina briefly leans over to grab the remote and click play. A small, forgettable motion, yet as she leans back into the couch, her elbow arches over the top of Henry’s head and lays flat over the top of the couch. There, she taps the tips of her fingers along the couch. 

It is only a flash of movement, a brief as a second, but the message is clear.

As the dark room glows briefly with the green of the opening credits, Emma edges herself a little closer to Henry, slipping her hand up onto the top of the couch. Immediately, Regina’s hand slides over her knuckles and closes tenderly around her wrist.

A flutter of warmth fills Emma’s chest. As the television screen flickers black and fills the room with the familiar boom of the opening music, Emma glances quickly over the top of Henry’s head to look at Regina. She is poised with attention, her legs crossed neatly at the knee, seemingly completely absorbed in the film, but her thumb is stroking small circles along the sensitive side of Emma’s wrist.

The movie proceeds at its usual pace. Emma watches through a dazed, half-minded interest, having already seen it multiple times, she knows that she does not share the same interest in adventure stories as the rest of her family does, so she allows herself to drift sleepily beneath the soft lull of a familiar story unfolding. Regina smooths soft repetitive motions from the bumps of her knuckles to her wrists with the tips of her fingers.

A while later, the screen suddenly pauses as Henry lurches up from the couch.

“Bathroom,” he excuses himself with solemn sincerity, and then jumps up into a scurried run around the corner.

A soft quiet descends between them. Regina still has her hand on Emma’s, her palm now a soft warm mold over Emma’s knuckles.

“You’re quiet this evening,”

“Hm?” Emma raises her head, realizing she’d closed her eyes at some point, “Oh. I’m just tired.”

Regina nods. After a moment, a tentative palm presses against Emma’s own, shifting until Regina’s fingers press between the bends of Emma’s.

“Are you too tired to stay the night?” Regina asks, softly.

Blood buzzes in her ears, heart thudding. She can't stay -- could she? Things will only become more complicated...

"I..." Emma lets out a deep breath and looks over at Regina's tentative expression. Warmth floods her chest, watching as Regina's attention remains completely on Emma's fingers, watching as her own thumb moves back and forth along Emma's hand. She lets out a deep sigh, giving up. “I'd love to stay the night.”

The corner of Regina’s mouth pulls into a small smile. Who is this woman? Emma thinks, with delight. She had always imagined Regina to be smooth and confident in all of her romantic relationships, whether casual or fraught with hope as it had been with Robin. She’d imagined Regina to be somewhat unassailable, to seduce and adore with the same gliding ease as a ship on water. But this Regina, though tender and genuine, is undeniably nervous. Had she always been this way? Or is each tender, heart-felt moment as much of a surprise to Regina as it is to her?

“Good,” Regina says at last. A thumb draws along the back of Emma’s hand.

Through the half-open window, wind chimes off key in the garden alcove outside. The porch light times off and dims the room into a darker shade.

“How are you liking the film?” Regina whispers.

Smiling, Emma glances back at the dim screen where Luke Skywalker’s back is shown. He will soon descend into a dark cave of evil and face the manifestation of his darkest nature. A classic favorite of Regina’s.

“Honestly,” Emma laughs, “I’ve seen it like four times, already.”

“What?” Regina looks at her sharply, “Why didn’t you say so?”

“Because this is like, your _favorite_ film ever.”

“It is _not_.”

“Oh, yes it is.” Emma laughs lowly, and feels her chest teem with warmth at Regina’s glare, “No, really, it’s okay, Madame Mayor, I am happy to watch your favorite movie. It gives me the opportunity to see just how big of a nerd you are.”

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

“Come now. Is that really a secret?” Scooting closer, Emma leans in to teasingly whisper, “It’s okay, Madame Mayor, I won’t tell anyone that you’re obviously obsessed with _Star Wars_. Or that you sometimes mouth along with the dialogue.”

“You’re getting rather brave aren’t you?” Regina turns to whisper against Emma’s ear, and though her tone is fairly scathing, as her lips travel the side of Emma’s jaw, the words lose their derision, “I think I’ll have to put you back in your place, Ms. Swan.”

“Careful,” Emma directs a quick glances at the darkened hallway.

“Shh,” Regina purrs and slides a leg over Emma’s lap, “We still have time.”

Scooping up her jaw, Regina pulls Emma into another searing kiss. Her mouth is warm and soft against hers and tastes faintly of tomato sauce. The brush of her lips sparks on Emma’s mouth, the soft zap of their magic fizzling between them. Tremors flourish up Regina’s thighs, and she squeezes her knees around Emma’s hips.

“Do you feel that?” Regina gasps into Emma’s mouth, “When- when we kiss?”

Before Emma can even hope to answer, however, Regina covers Emma’s mouth again and slides her fingers deep into her hair.

Emma groans and coasts her hands up the back of Regina’s thighs. The thin fabric prickles with static electricity. Squeezing to the bone, she hauls Regina closer by the hips, molding hot, lush kisses into Regina’s mouth until they are both breathless.

In the distance, a door handle jiggles, and unlocks.

Immediately, in a motion so seamless, Emma hardly can track it, Regina disengages herself and settles back onto her side of the couch. By the time Henry pads back into the living room again, Regina has pushed her dress back against her knees and looks calm and faintly bored as she glances over a ring on her finger absentmindedly as if she hadn’t just mauled her kid’s other mother mere seconds ago.

Henry bounds up onto the seat between them. “Okay,” he sighs, and snuggles back into his Mom’s side. Emma watches, her heart stuck in her throat as Regina bites the corner of her mouth to hide the wobble of emotion and gently sweeps her fingers along his dark hair.

When Regina resumes the movie, Emma half expects her to curl her arm back around her son, but she resumes the position she had before, stretching her arm out long across the top of the couch until she can close her hand around Emma’s wrist. Regina doesn’t look away from the movie again (because it really _is_ her favorite) but all through the night, her fingers smooth small tender circles along Emma’s wrist.

***

“I have an extra toothbrush in here,” Regina’s voice dawdles from the partially closed bathroom door.

Emma hums and glances sparingly around Regina’s bedroom, realizing she has never once stepped inside. There had been few reasons to, of course. But in the six years they have known each other, Regina had spent time a good amount of time Emma’s room, had even laid upon her bed a few times to read a bedtime story to Neal or ease a cramp from her foot. But Regina’s bedroom had remained a remote, rarified section of the house, a place of obeisance to which only a select few could visit. 

Still, the room looks almost exactly as Emma imagined it. On the far side there is an enormous bed at least the size of a football field. A bay window faces the distant ridge of mountains, where the stunted roofs of the town below lay humbly visible, their stone cowls poking tentatively through late-evening fog. There is a walk-in closet, an elegant-looking ceiling light that dims, and shelves upon shelves crowded with books.

“Did you hear me?”

Emma turns to see Regina in the doorway peering curiously at her as she unlatches each earring. Emma blinks at the scene before her. Regina in a lacy top and black silk pajama shorts, her face freshly scrubbed in preparation to go to bed with Emma. It feels far too dream-like to be real.

“Yeah?” she asks.

“The toothbrush,” Regina’s brow furrows, “I said I have an extra one for you.”

“Oh,” Emma blinks rapidly to clear the cloudy space in her head. “Right.”

Regina arcs an eyebrow at her but opens the door wider for Emma. Squeezing through the bathroom door, Emma is given a toothbrush and shown vaguely towards the various bottles of expensive face wash, oils, and moisturizers. To her surprise, Regina remains by her side to swiftly finish up her night-time routine. Emma watches somewhat dumbly through the speckless mirror as Regina rubs moisturizer between her palms, and then around her wrists, up to her elbow, and then down again.

After a moment, Emma’s gaze bounces to a pair of very amused eyes in the mirror. With a blush, Emma mumbles, “ _shut up,”_ and shoves the toothbrush in her mouth, scrubbing through her laugh. Regina doesn’t say a word, but her hand affectionately coasts down Emma’s back before she leaves.

By the time Emma closes the bathroom door, Regina is stretched luxuriously out on the bed with a book in hand, which is promptly bookmarked and closed the moment Emma closes the bathroom door. A hot flush burns up Emma’s neck and behind her ears as Regina sinks luxuriously into her pillows, her smile a lecherous flash of expectation.

Pressing one leg onto the mattress, Emma gazes down at Regina in astonishment. Her soft dark hair is splayed across the pillows, and she is on crooked-up arms, smiling up at her with those red lip. Her rumbled black pajama shorts, those smooth soft thighs.

As Emma puts a knee on either side of Regina’s hips, a heavy breath of anticipation expels out of Regina as she gently arches her hips.

“Hey,” Emma whispers.

“Hey,” Regina exhales softly and drags her fingernails down Emma’s thighs.

Emma shivers. Her heart hammers in her chest, booming loudly behind her thoughts like loud party music that is playing from another room. She is teetering ever closer to a decision that could blow up her life, yet as Regina trails her hands slowly up and down Emma’s thighs, the threat of no longer returning to her future feels suddenly faraway, like a nightmare that had become too strange and abstract upon waking up, she can even hardly remember her own terror.

Darkness has always suited Regina. Her beauty sharpens in the night, makes her eyes shine like ink and her hair glossy. Stunned slightly, Emma splays a palm against Regina’s cheek, she feels with her thumb the slope of bone beneath her eye and makes those dark eyelashes fall closed.

“You’re beautiful.”

It comes out sounding far more weighted than she wants it to. She knows she must sound pitiful or worshipful because Regina’s eyelashes flutter with surprise. In the stunned silence that follows, Emma somewhat expects Regina to go cold or cruel, but instead, her eyes flutter and she smiles brightly as if they were both just girls. She leans into Emma’s palm again and presses a soft kiss against heel of Emma’s hand.

Emma gasps softly, heart thundering in her chest. She smooths her thumb over a plump lower lip, and then leans down to feel it with her mouth.

There is that same soft spark, like electricity, and as they kiss softly, it builds into a soft thrum between them, escalating their kisses until each contact ends with a smart of teeth. A tongue flicks lightly against Emma’s upper lip and leaves her tingling in a way that she has never experienced before. Shuddering, Emma settles her arms on either side of Regina’s head and adjusts her weight against Regina’s hips, sighing as Regina puts soft, tender kisses down Emma’s cheek, to her ear, and then down her neck.

By the time Regina has found her pulse point, Emma is breathless and trembling.

A smile curves against her neck, “You’re trembling.”

Emma snorts and closes her eyes. _You’re just my best friend who I’ve been in love with forever._

“Give me a break.” She grumbles.

“Never.” Regina purrs into Emma’s neck and sucks the skin into her mouth.

Emma groans, and drags both hands down Regina’s breasts, shivering when she feels stiff nipples against her palm. Dazedly, Emma gathers the fabric of Regina’s lacy top into her hands and slowly slides it over the swell of her breasts, and then pulls it over her head. The sight of Regina topless beneath her, with lips kissed red and her eyes wild, a rush of heat floods through her body and drops her down to Regina’s neck again, leaving warm, open-mouthed kisses down her shoulder, down her collarbones, to the valley of smooth skin between her breasts.

Regina’s back separates from the mattress, and with a soft groan her knees slide up around Emma’s waist to help ground them both.

Breathless, Emma closes around a stiff nipple, sucking it into her mouth, her thumb rolling the other until it feels as stiff as the one on her tongue. Warm, eager fingers splay along Emma’s back, her knees squeezing around Emma’s hips. As Regina begins to pant, Emma grazes the very tip of her nipple with her teeth. A hot moan expels out into the darkness.

“Do you know the moment I wanted you?” Regina breathes into the darkness.

Shuddering, heart suddenly hammering, Emma pauses to shift onto her forearms to look into Regina’s face.

“What?” she pants, “When?”

Even in the dark, she can see Regina’s smirk. “When you took a chainsaw to my apple tree.”

Blinking at the memory, Emma lets out a weak, shuddering laugh. “Regina. You looked like you wanted to _murder_ me.”

“Oh I did,” Regina says, and laughs in that deep, rich way of hers that sounds slightly evil, and makes the base of Emma’s spine tingle. She slides her hands up the curve of Emma’s shoulders, and gently massages the cords of muscle along her shoulders. “But I liked your nerve,” she smirks against Emma’s lips.

Emma laughs again and feels almost ridiculously happy. Her lungs shudder between her ribs like wings of a bird before it is about to take off.

Drooping down, Emma nuzzles softly against Regina’s flushed chest. “Do you always try to destroy the people you like?” she smiles.

“Bad habit,” Regina’s low laugh roughens into a groan as Emma licks the slope of her clavicle Her fingers dig into Emma’s shoulder blades, pressing deeply into the skin. 

“Do you still want to destroy me?” Emma breathes around Regina’s breast.

“Fortunately for you, no,” Regina arches into Emma’s mouth. “My priorities have changed.”

“Lucky me,” she rubs her thumb over Regina’s wet nipple as she descends upon the other breast, “I hear the Evil Queen has a fearsome reputation.”

“That’s true,” Regina purrs, and slides her fingers through Emma’s hair.

Flattening her tongue along the underside of Regina’s breast, Emma smirks as Regina arches her back and whimpers lowly. Fingers tighten painfully in Emma’s hair. As Emma trails warm, soft kisses along the outskirts of her ribs, Regina makes a quiet desperate sound in the back of her throat.

“What would you do if I really was the Evil Queen?” Regina whispers into the darkness.

It takes a moment for the words to settle, but when they do, Emma winces and twitches away a little from Regina’s chest. Reality settles in the room, settling across Emma’s spine a glistening glaze of ice.

“Oh,” Emma sucks in a deep breath. Her heart rattles for an entirely different reason. “ I guess I’d have to break your curse.”

“Oh, really?” Regina laughs lowly, a deep pleased sound, “You think I would make it easy for you?”

“No,” she says, “I’d imagine you’d probably try to poison me.”

“Poison you?” Regina smiles and cards her fingers through Emma’s hair. “No, my darling. Why would I poison you?”

Blinking, brows furrowing, Emma asks. “You wouldn’t poison me?”

“No, of course not,” Regina slides her palms around Emma’s back and urges her closer until their bodies are flushed once more and she can clutch at Emma’s bare back and nuzzle her ear, “You think just because the Evil Queen cursed an apple once, it’s the only thing she can think up? No. What would I gain from that? You’d be gone. My son would be heartbroken. And…well, I don’t want to lose you either,” She drags the tips of her fingers down Emma’s neck.

“Oh.”

“You want to know what I’d do?” Regina whispers lowly, “I’d find a little bit of magic. Anything from my old world would do it. Then I’d use it to wrap you into my curse.”

Emma absorbs the words silently, unable to speak.

“You’d put me in your curse.” She echoes flatly, deadened.

Smiling, Regina gently caresses Emma’s cheek with the tips of her fingers, blind to Emma’s mute horror.

“Mhm. You’d have memories of this place. Maybe you’d have found us a little earlier. We’d still fight of course, just as we did, but we eventually work it out, and you decide to stay and help me raise Henry,” Regina’s eyes flash at the thought of an entirely different kind of sleeping curse, a waking, slumbering daydream rather than nightmare. Her fingers curl at the back of Emma’s neck possessively. “You’d be mine forever,” she whispers against Emma’s ear as if this were the normal sort of promises shared between lovers.

Oh god.

Horror crowds heavily inside her chest, like too many bodies in an elevator, it thickens the air. Emma sinks back onto her knees.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Emma musters, at last, “Regina, I wouldn’t be yours. I’d be _cursed_.”

Regina’s eyelashes flutter rapidly, opening ever wider as if she were just splashed with ice water. Emma has not yet allowed herself to dwell really truly on what she could destroy by being here, but now it stretches enormously in front of her like the sky. She has jumped into the most painful juncture of their lives, and now it is frozen at its most climatic point. Now _everything_ — their friendship, Regina’s redemption, her relationship with their son, their _family_ — is left open and raw and uncertain of its new path. Has she gambled away everything? Her stomach clenches.

“God. Regina. That’s not a life I’d _ever_ want. And it’s not one _you’d_ want either,” Emma lets everything in her tremble out in her voice, in her eyes, in the hand she puts against Regina’s cheek, “You wouldn’t be _happy_ , Regina. You’d just be in control.”

A flustered look crosses Regina’s expression, “I – ” she gapes, and scrapes a laugh out between her teeth, “Emma, I’m only joking.”

Emma sighs and looks at Regina mournfully.

“No. No you’re not,” Emma drags a hand wearily through her hair, “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’ve been so stupid. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t even be doing this.”

Alarm sharpens Regina’s eyes. Immediately, she sits up and clutches Emma by the wrists.

“Darling, you’re taking this _far_ too seriously,” Regina soothes, her voice lofty and soft, making light of everything. When the tension doesn’t evaporate, she squeezes Emma with a grip hard enough to crack walnuts, “You’re being silly. This was just make-believe; I shouldn’t have even brought it up. Just forget I said anything.”

“No,” Emma says, “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

Twisting her wrists upward, she breaks Regina’s grip.

Regina flinches as if she’d been slapped. Her hands curl slowly inward, forming tight fists that return close to her chest as if she believed she still held some part of Emma. 

Staring down at Regina, Emma feels a buzzing calm flood through her head, the same chilling numbness that blooms from a potentially fatal wound.

“I lied to you yesterday.” She says, then.

Regina blinks. A gleam brightens her eyes. “What?” she asks tentatively.

“When you asked me whether I thought the curse was real. I said no. I lied.”

In the dark, the lull of Regina’s breathing thickens and turns unsteady. Around them there is the sense of a growing disaster. Water has fallen through all the doors. The windows won’t open, and the rooms will flood.

Finally, in a voice almost sharp, Regina asks, “What are you playing at?”

“I know all about you,” Emma tries to cushion the blow with all the gentleness she can muster, though regardless of what she does, she knows it will be remembered with hatred. “I know that you were once a notoriously violent Evil Queen. I know that you cast a curse twenty-eight years ago, and I know that you’ve done some truly terrible things both in this world and your old one. And I know that right now you don’t really regret any of them.”

The sound Regina makes is almost like a laugh, one of those tickling, devilish laughs of hers that can masterfully undercut the cunning of another, but she cannot quite force the breath for it.

“You are playing a dangerous game here Ms. Swan,” Regina says, her tone a buffed edge nearly sharp enough to be scathing, “I suggest you drop this joke, at once.”

“I know you killed Graham. I know about your vault of hearts underground.”

“ _Enough_.”

Regina’s broad, beautiful face crumples seamlessly from anguish to fury. When angry, Regina’s beauty becomes inescapable. It crackles inside of her eyes and electrifies the air. Emma must tuck her fingers between her knees to keep from reaching out to Regina, knowing that a touch could be dangerous.

“I know that you love your son more than anything,” Emma whispers now. “And I know that very soon I will have to break your curse.”

A clenched, shuddering noise leaves Regina’s lungs. It is a scraped and difficult sound like an old rusty window opening in the middle of winter.

Suddenly, two firm hands push flatly against Emma’s chest, knocking her backwards. Tumbling flat onto her back, Emma scrambles up onto her elbows as she blinks up into the darkness. There’s the sound of a shifting mattress.

“Regina…?” Emma squints.

“You can’t really believe all of this…” Regina’s stricken voice is thick with fear. “There is no way you really believe all of this.”

Slowly, straightening her elbows, she sighs. “I didn’t want to tell you any of this. But I don’t think I have a choice anymore.”

“So, _everything_ you said last night was a lie?” Regina nearly sobs, voice like a whip. “Everything, you were just _bluffing_. For _what_?

“No, it _wasn’t_ all a lie--”

“You told me you – you said all those things about me, like you saw a different side of me. You told me I wasn’t a _monster_ ,” Regina’s voice staggers through the dark like something wild and unruly. “And I _believed_ you.”

“You’re _not_ a monster,” Emma grapples for some part of Regina she can hold in the darkness, but the mattress shifts once more, dispersing Regina’s weight from the center of the bed to the far edge. Her eyes smart. She lets her hand drop, “I wish it didn’t have to be like this. But I did something very selfish, and soon… I will have to leave you with it.”

The silence churns around them, swallows them whole.

“What did you do?” Regina asks tentatively, sounding choked.

Emma closes her eyes. Ground Rule number #1 burns like a faintly phosphorus image in her head.

“Do you know anything about time travel?” she asks.

A minute of silence passes. The darkness blurs and shifts in front of her eyes.

“Ah,” Regina utters, at last. “I see.”

A moment later, the corner desk light turns on. It illumines the bed with a sudden brisk, unsentimental flash. Flinching, Emma squints against the light and seeks Regina out again, finding her leaning against the black headboard with an expression of unutterably cold resignation on her face.

“So,” Regina bares her teeth into a small smile, “I suppose I can assume you’ve already broken my curse.”

“In my timeline, yes,” Emma says, “I have.”

“Well. You’ve successfully played me for the fool,” Regina sneers, and folds her hands into her lap, “You’ve been teasing me about my curse for weeks while I thought you still to be none the wiser.”

“I didn’t mean for things to get this far—"

“No?” Regina laughs brutally. “Well, you clearly didn’t go back in time to _avoid_ breaking my curse. So apart from wanting to relive your glory days, there is really only one reason that comes to mind for your coming back here…”

Everything unspoken between them squirms beneath the light like deep-water creatures pulled abruptly to the surface.

Emma tries once to explain but her voice dissolves.

“Come now, dear. You can tell me,” A nasty little smile settles on Regina’s plum-dark lips, “Have you come to play with your dearly defeated Evil Queen?”

“No– no, it wasn’t like that,” A hot sick feeling lurches in Emma’s heart, and she looks down, “I didn’t come back here on purpose. I didn’t even mean to get mixed up with you, I just -- I just missed how it used to feel. Before the curse broke, before I got loaded with all my responsibilities as Savior. Before everything got so stupidly complicated.”

“So you came back to avoid responsibilities?” Regina hums to herself, smiling in secret accordance with the conversation that goes on only in her head, “Well. How sad for you. What can I do to help you, dear? Do you want my forgiveness? Maybe I can put in a quick word for you before my execution. See if the other royals will go a little easier on you.”

The space yawns between them suddenly with wordless horror.

“Regina, god, you didn’t _die_ ,” Emma gapes, and stands, stuttering closer to Regina, but the look in those dark eyes cuts through her legs. Emma places a hand against the corner desk and resists the urge to crumble in front of Regina’s legs. “Christ – it’s not like that. There’s no execution, or life-long prison sentence, nothing like that. And I certainly don’t _kill_ you to break the curse if that’s what you’re thinking. In my timeline, you even helped me break it.”

“ _Please_ ,” Regina laughs.

“No, really,” Emma urges, and then winces, “Well, alright. It’s not for any reason you’d like. And it _will_ be bad for a little while, after the curse breaks, but Regina…” she sighs, and as she eases down to her knees after all, she spots how some of the tension fades from Regina’s face. Emma stays, putting a hand tentatively on the mattress beside Regina’s knee. “You don’t lose, just because your curse breaks. In our future, you are deeply respected. Nobody sees you as a villain in my future.”

Regina scoffs, but there is a flash in her eyes. Emma has her attention.

“I sincerely doubt that anyone in this town would allow me to live should my curse break.”

“A lot happens,” Emma says, “You can’t imagine how much things change. You’ve been living the same way for twenty-eight years, I’m sure it feels impossible to imagine such a different future. But it’s there. People come to trust you, rely on you, love you. Not just your family, but people in this town who used to _fear_ you.”

Regina’s eyes narrows “They don’t _fear_ me?”

Whoops. Emma awkwardly rectifies, “They uh…fearfully love and respect you?”

At that, at least, Regina snorts.

The amusement lasts a moment. Then the depths of her eyes thin, and Regina turns towards the window. From the floor, Emma can see the tension in the jagged streak of her jaw and in all the tight muscles along her cheek.

“And what about Henry?” she asks.

As the silence settles, Regina looks down at Emma again. A vast, endless fear comes off her like smoke from a thawing lake. Impossible to contain.

Tentatively, Emma puts a hand on Regina’s knee. Though Regina rolls her ankle irritably, she doesn’t kick Emma away.

“Henry loves you,” Emma squeezes gently, “He loves you so much. It won’t always be easy. But in my future, you’re his biggest hero.”

At that, Regina’s eyes narrow onto Emma with that unnerving attention of hers. Only Regina has the ability to hold something as incorporeal and intangible as a feeling liable – she will pull every promise out of thin air and test it for strength like one might test the integrity of a thread.

Finally, Regina purses her lips, and looks away.

“I must be a fool…” Regina mutters lowly, “I shouldn’t even be considering _any_ of this. You’re the Savior, destined to break my curse. You have no reason to tell me the truth.”

“You’ll find I’m not that great at keeping anything from you,” Emma says and squeezes Regina’s knee comfortingly. “Everything will work out alright, you’ll see. We just have to…work through this tough spot.”

Regina exhales humorlessly through her nose, “I’ll assume that the tough spot is to ensure that my curse breaks?”

“Right,” Emma winces.

“And what if I stop you?”

Emma levels herself, “You probably could if you did it right. You’d have to kill me or curse me, and if you do that, your future will be far different from the one you and I have together. Maybe it’ll be enough for you, but I’m willing to guess it won’t be as happy of a future as the one you have waiting for you.”

Regina’s eyes darken dangerously. She stares at Emma for a long time, and then, at last, she purses her lips and arches her chin.

“What happiness is waiting for me, then?" Regina asks with queenly authority. Emma’s heart trembles a little, knowing with a quiet squirming pleasure that Regina is going to make her work for it.

Emma lays both hands on the mattress beside Regina’s legs, looks up into her sharp expression.

"More than you can imagine," Emma says, "If I described it to you now, it would seem strange to you. But I promise, in the future, it's a life you would have fought to keep."

Regina narrows her eyes and a little derisive noise forms in her throat. "How convenient. You won't tell me."

“Ask me anything,” Emma urges, devoutly. "I'll try."

The coolness in Regina wavers. Her eyes shine briefly, and then harden again. 

After a moment, Regina clears her throat. She shifts on the bed, and rolls her ankle rolls agitatedly. 

"Does Henry remain mine?" Regina asks.

A beat of hesitation passes, then Emma sighs. "In time," she says. "You will lose him at first, but after a little while he will come back to you. You will always share him with me, but he's never really been mine the way he's been yours. We just -- we love him together -- we're his mothers," she sighs deeply, feeling the familiar soft thrumming ache in her heart. "it has been a very long time since he's been a point of tension between us."

Regina regards her silently for a while, then nods once and folds her hands over her knee again. She draws her lips together and lets some distinct discomfort rev quietly in her throat before she blows it shortly out of her nose.

"So you and I are still...close." Regina asks lowly, barely inaudible.

Emma shifts uncomfortably. "Uh, yeah, we are."

Regina casts a long sidelong look at her before she nods and looks back to the wall. 

"Are we together?" Regina asks to the room, not daring to look at Emma. 

The soft thrumming ache sharpens into something fierce. Emma closes her eyes. 

"No."

"No?" Regina echoes quietly, and lets her fingers curl into her knees. "Really?"

"Really," Emma sighs. "But -- it's not -- it's certainly not from a lack of feeling on my part."

A moment of quiet passes. Regina stares out at the soft blue room as if they were both standing on the deck of a great ship watching something bright and vast and almost incomprehensible tunnel around them. 

"You still have feelings for me?" she repeats softly.

"Yes." Emma whispers quietly, her voice a tremble of feeling. "Very much."

There's a long beat of silence. Then Regina nods and looks down. 

"I suppose..." Regina says to her fingers, her shoulders rolling back uncomfortably. "Considering how it's all going now -- the curse breaking might be for the best."

“Okay.” A queasy relief fills Emma’s stomach. She shifts, and quietly clears her throat, “Full disclosure, though…I will probably need your help to make sure the curse breaks, though.”

Regina's mouth juts down sharply.

“You need _my_ help?” Regina directs a look so sharp with resentment that Emma feels herself shrink back. “Isn’t that _your_ job, Savior?”

“It was,” Emma grimaces, “I can’t break the curse twice though. I have to leave, and my past self will have to be…ready to break the curse.”

“And I’m supposed to help you with that?” Regina scoffs incredulously, “My curse is already weakening. All you need from _me_ is my death — that’s the prophecy isn’t it? Snow White and Prince Charming’s daughter comes to save the day and vanquishes the Evil Queen. Isn’t that what you’re meant to do, _Savior_? It sounds like it’s working out perfectly. I don’t see what else you _need_.”

“Regina,” Emma palms her forehead wearily, “I told you. It’s not like that.”

“What is it like, then? Do you break my curse with _True Loves kiss?_ ” Her voice drawls hatefully over the phrase.

Though Emma tries to keep her face void of emotion, a muscle tightens in her cheek. She feels the lid of her left eye twitch.

Regina’s eyes widen, turning wild.

“You do?” She rasps, then more waspish, “ _Who is it_?”

Emma cringes. “I can’t tell you that.”

“All this time you have a _True Love_ , and you’re here with _me_ —“

“It’s not like that!”

“And _I’m_ the one who’s supposed to _help_ you break _my curse,”_ Regina laughs viciously, and stands up from the mattress, her fury just as intimidating as ever. “Why not ask your _true love_? You certainly don’t need _me_.”

“I _do_ , though.”

“No, _dear._ You don’t. Not if you have a True Love. And to think -- here I thought--" she scoffs, sneering as she shakes her head. “You have quite a bit of nerve asking me _that_.”

Emma rubs her forehead and sighs because their story is so much more complex than what Regina is imagining. Regina, of course, couldn’t know. She’s grown up inside these quick fairytales. Snow White sleeps, and wakes up again with a kiss from Prince Charming— a glass slipper is lost and returned to a foot that fits it perfectly – the Evil-Queen casts a dark curse and is defeated by a Savior —

All simple, two-part stories.

It just doesn’t quite fit them.

“I do need you. Things aren’t going to go the way you think,” Emma says softly, “And I need you even more now. Our past isn’t going the way it had before. I need your help, to set it back on track, or else — or else—“ She swallows.

Regina’s eyes narrow. “Or else _what_?”

Wincing, her cheeks prickling, Emma tucks in her lower lip and looks down at her hands.

“Look,” she exhales, “Before I explain anything further I have to know — so just be honest,” She wrings her fingers together and looks up, “Knowing what you know now, is there any part of you that hopes I disappear?”

Regina’s brow folds fiercely. “Disappear? What do you mean?”

“Well. Die.”

A wordless emotion rips through Regina’s expression, impossible to articulate, but it crumples her forehead in deeply creased lines.

“No,” she rasps her voice stripped. “Of _course_ I don’t want you to _die_.”

“Okay,” A muted relief warms Emma’s stomach, “Then, please, help me put our pasts back on the track it was before. If we don’t, if too many things change, I’ll bungle up the whole-time continuum or whatever, and be erased from existence.”

A firm line settles Regina’s mouth, the teacher in her rearing up elegantly like a heron from water.

“Who told you all of this?”

“Uh,” she grimaces. “August?”

Black eyes sharpen, “And what does _August_ know about magic?”

“I don’t know...” A prickle of heat warms her neck, feeling suddenly caught cheating on a test. She reels back in her memory for information that she had gathered about August throughout the years, but he had remained as distant to her social realm as stars, like most others beyond her family, “I think he studied with a master for a while? Shoot, I don’t know. He seems to know what he’s talking about though.”

“I’m sure,” Regina sneers, scornfully. “He’s not _wrong_. The universe does work towards coherency — if you do something that can’t be explained, it’ll erase you. But you still have a _True Love_ to break the curse,” a corner of Regina’s mouth crooks with dislike, “so I don’t see how you could have really earned the consequence of being completely erased.”

“Because…” Emma wearily rubs eyes. “You and I…what we’ve been doing would have never happened before. I mean, you _hated_ me. Really hated me…and now …” she drifts off vaguely, but with the marks of their kisses still visible, the bed still tousled with their time together, the answer lays out pretty clearly.

A silence wavers.

“I see,” Regina says, faintly. She inclines her chin slightly, the defensive position she takes upon every battle, every argument, every meeting. “So you need me to hate you again.”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Regina sneers, and leans forward just so that her shadow can loom over Emma, “So I can push you into the arms of your _True Love?_ ”

“No,” Emma almost smiles, “I told you, it’s not like that. It’s not that kind of true love.”

Regina’s eyes flicker slightly, “What do you mean —?”

“It’s platonic.”

After a moment, Regina tilts her head in acknowledgement. She looks down at her hands.

“But you and I still…” Regina glanced up and makes a line out of her mouth. “We never have a relationship.”

“No.” Emma sighs, “No we don’t.”

Regina nods once and rolls her ankle, quiet once more. 

“I see,” Regina says at last, and settles her hands over her knee, back to business, “Then what do you propose we do, now?”

Sensing the coolness between them, Emma slowly stands, and makes space. 

“My past self won’t have any memory of the last few weeks. I don’t think much has to change. You’ll just need to treat my past self with the same hostility as before. And …” Emma hesitates, and in the seconds of silence that follow, she can feel Regina stiffening, bracing herself for impact. She sighs. “And you need to bake me a cursed apple turnover. With the same poisoned apple that you used for my mother.”

A moment of dead air passes between them. Regina stares at Emma with the same blank cordial expression she’d offer to a stranger’s child who had spoken only nonsense. Then, slowly, comprehension dawns and the corners of Regina’s mouth turn down severely.

“You want me to bake you a poisoned apple turnover,” Regina repeats flatly at first, and then with a rising incredulousness, “ _Poisoned_? Are you mad?”

“Yeah, I know.” Emma half-laughs, “Look. It -- It’ll make sense later.”

“If I _curse you_ , wouldn’t that keep you from breaking the curse?”

“Well, don’t try poison my water or anything, but I’ll be fine if you bake me a cursed apple turnover.”

Disbelief dries Regina’s laugh in her throat. Though her lips curl open she makes no sound.

“I _will_ ,” Emma urges, “But I don’t think I should explain beyond that – I’m afraid if I give away too much, it’ll --”

“Yes, yes, I know the rules,” Regina snaps, and lays a hand warily against her head, “Gods.”

“I know.” Emma laughs. But in truth, there’s a touch of comfort in the craziness of their lives. The worst that could happen has happened and will keep happening. That is a reality Emma came to understand early in life, but what she could not have imagined is the love that would be revealed beneath it; everything else – fate, curses, all the stupid arguments -- as it turns out, had been as weightless and roving as sand, and the love beneath it an endless rocky terrain.

It is something Regina can’t quiet imagine either, not yet. So when Regina looks at her from the side with eyes fraught and sharp, Emma smiles and tentatively sits on the bed beside Regina.

“It’ll be okay.” Emma assures, and tentatively pats her knee. “Everything will work out alright.”

“You keep saying that” Regina sighs and looks away. “Personally, I feel like I’m staring down the sword.”

“It won’t always be easy, but it’ll be worth it,” Emma says, and gently nudges Regina’s shoulder with her own, an affectionate gesture she’s done a thousand times before and still somehow earns that ironed-out-line of a smile from Regina, the one she always gets for nudging her shoulder: a smile forcibly flattened by the wish to not be amused.

Smiling, Emma nudges Regina’s shoulder again and gets a light swat over the head that makes her laugh, and somehow, despite everything, it all feels a little better, a little brighter, between them.

Once settled, a numbed feeling settles over them. It is almost peaceful, a dull blunted calm. Outside, the wind whistles softly into nowhere. Regina doesn’t stir. She stares out at the darkness steadily as if she were reading a line of script on the wall. 

“Sometime in your future, you will look around and see all these people who love you. There will be so much love there for you, by people who know you and will _always_ love you.” Emma says and stares down at her fingers, now knotted together between her knees, only looking up again when she feels Regina turn to her. Her grin slides lopsidedly, warm again, “It will be worth it. I promise.”

Regina watches her silently, her dark eyes swimming in the darkness.

“I suppose I’ll have to trust you on that.” She says quietly, at last.

Emma nods and looks back to her fingers. She can feel the moment turning again, the silence thinning like a rubber band stretched past its elasticity.

“Are you tired?” She whispers.

Regina makes a quiet sound. “Exhausted,” she says, and though her voice is not sharp, the word still punctures the air.

Nodding once, Emma stands and slides her hands anxiously into her pockets, grimacing slightly when her fingers slide along silk. Half an hour ago she had touched Regina like a lover. Her skin still hums with Regina’s kisses. Only half an hour ago.

Turning towards the door, Emma halts suddenly, feeling a hand close around her elbow.

Blinking, Emma looks down at Regina. He eyes are not soft, nor are they warm, but they are bright and dark and welling with an unspeakable depth that stills Emma’s heart.

“Regina?” Emma asks tentatively.

With a sigh, Regina closes her eyes.

“Will you… lay down with me?” She whispers softly. Gently, she caresses Emma’s arm with her thumb, squeezes the bone, “Nothing else, I promise. I just don’t want to be alone right now.”

“Oh,” Emma breathes lightly, and settles on the mattress again, “Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed <3


	5. part five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there’s some sexy times this chapter so beware ❤️

In the end, they’re too wired to sleep. The room holds the darkness around them and keeps between its walls all that has been said the few hours.

The sky outside is brightening into a shade of grey that means in a few short hours they will have to get up, go to work, and pretend that their lives are still put together.

Regina shifts quietly beside her. Emma knows she is awake although her eyes remain closed. There are small signs of her restlessness, like how Regina will turn to the side and sigh or crack a small bone in one of her toes, but mainly it is because the air is empty of the soft snoring that Emma has become fondly accustomed to. She had first heard that soft snore in the middle of Neverland, and though this room holds neither the threat nor the terror that it had then, without it, the emptiness of the air weighs without comfort.

“Are you awake?” Regina whispers after a quiet moment.

Emma smiles and turns her cheek to the soft pillow they now share. Regina glances back at her, her eyelashes dark and long against her cheek. In the morning, with her black hair snarled in tight coils and her eyes heavy and tired, Regina looks more beautiful than Emma can really believe.

“Yes,” Emma whispers, and slides her hands beneath her cheek, turning onto one side. “I’ve hardly even blinked.”

“This will make work interesting tomorrow.” Regina murmurs.

“For you, maybe,” Emma says, “I’m planning on taking a nap midday and then going home early.”

“I’ll put you in a three-hour meeting with me, don’t test me,” Regina whispers, and Emma laughs lowly, scooting closer.

“Whatever you say, Madame Mayor.”

A beat of quiet passes.

“So,” Regina whispers, and looks at her from beneath her eyelashes, “We’re not together.”

The happiness in Emma’s chest dims. “No.” She says softly. “We’re not.”

“But you…” Regina tucks her lips in hesitantly, “You have feelings for me.”

The end of her voice goes up like a question. In the bluing light, as Regina looks tentatively towards her again, she looks momentarily dreamlike, as if captured in an oil painting: a blue and black woman whose dark eyes pierce straight through the canvas, at any passerby who hesitates too long on her face.

“Yes.” Emma whispers at last.

Regina nods once, and then looks up to the ceiling. The wind fills the curtains briefly like parachutes before they drape back against the wall.

“Why aren’t we together?” she asks.

It’s the question Emma has been preparing for all night, but she still hasn’t liked any of the answers. She can think back to the beginning and check off all of the obstacles that stood between them in the last six years, but instead she finds instead endless moments between them where a relationship might have been possible, had the tensions not been so high. Had feelings been known. Had they talked more—

Had Emma learned to _embrace_ her feelings instead of bottling them up –

Had Emma turned Hook away –

Had Regina never lost Henry and her, never needed Robin — 

Had Emma not lost herself -- had Regina showed anything but indifference to her moving in with Hook – Had Emma not cared so much about being the perfect daughter –

It all comes down to it.

If. If. If.

“A lot happens between us,” Emma says at last, and snorts feebly at the understatement. “Things are just really complicated. We go through so much – ” she sighs and drags her fingers through her hair, pulling briefly at the roots, “God. I don’t even know if you’d feel this way in the first place. If I hadn’t come back ...”

Regina makes a low sound of protest in her chest, likely wanting to weigh in on a version of herself she couldn’t possibly know, but the prickling in Emma’s chest is beginning to turn into a high-winded panic.

“I should have never gone back in time,” Emma blinks back the heat of tears. “I’ve been so selfish – I put everything on the line just for – for a change. I might have just destroyed everything because of it.”

The quiet between them is soft and incomplete, full of a soft rustling as Regina turns onto her hip and lays her cheek beside Emma’s own hand.

“Why did you come here?” she whispers. “What did you want to change?”

There are endless things, really. Some are small and some impossible to articulate. There are the movies with her mother and then there is the way her mother sweeps her fingers over Neal’s forehead, and sighs with the sweetest smile on her face. There is the desire to be closer to Regina, and then there is that horrible halting fear in her heart that bundles up every shot she has to convey that to Regina. There are cool lonely days with Hook, and then there’s the way Hook picks at her daily, monotonously to tease out things in her that she struggles to share with anyone, much less herself.

“I was unhappy,” Emma says, at last. “So much so, that I got lost in it. I just got stuck, and I didn’t know how to get out again,” she laughs a little, a puff of a sound, “After a while it just became the easy thing to do, to just keep going. Everyone else seemed to be doing fine. And there was just this momentum to it, to just keep pretending like everything was fine, and that I was happy, and eventually it seemed sort of embarrassing to stop the act. The role had become my life, and if I admitted that it wasn’t really what I wanted, that I was miserable, then everyone would know that I’ve only been pretending at being happy. All this time, I’ve only been pretending,” she sighs, “They’d know that I was a fraud.”

The bed creaks softly. A shadow slips over her as Regina leans up onto her elbow, the bluing light outside creating a soft corona around her head.

Though her face is shadowed, backlit by the morning, Emma can still feel the intensity of her gaze in some eyeless, faceless place inside.

“What would make you happy?” Regina whispers, and gingerly touches Emma’s chin with the tips of her fingers, the way she does with Henry when she wants her love to be clearly understood.

Tears gather in her throat and Emma shifts into a sitting position, blinking her tears away at a faraway wall.

“I …” Emma begins, and must sit through the urge to shrug and give the same speedy defense she’s used for years, the blank-white expression, a shrug, a half-way smile, anything to cover up her wounds. She sighs, “I guess, what I’d really want is to just be loved by the same people I love, and for that love to bring me closer to them rather than further away.”

Three tentative fingers smooth up her back before flattening into a palm between her shoulder blades.

“What do you want from me?” Regina whispers.

Emma lifts her head with a tired smile but doesn’t look back at Regina.

“What do you think?” she answers softly.

A beat of quiet passes. Then, the bed shifts, a body sliding closer to her own. The hand on her back smooths up to the curve of her neck and gently traces along the buttons of vertebrae.

“I want more with you too,” Regina whispers, close to her ear. Emma shivers, and closes her eyes, losing herself a little to the soothing patterns Regina makes with her fingers, curving in large loops and swirls along her skin. Then, a nose nuzzles into her hair, “What if…” she sighs and brushes her lips across her ear, “After the curse breaks, what if I pursue you then?”

A flutter fills her chest.

“No.” Emma sighs, heavily. “It’d change too much.”

“Even after the curse breaks?” Regina asks slowly and pulls back. Her eyes narrow, “Is that really your _only_ reason?”

A steel cord of distrust sharpens her voice, and Emma twitches at the thought of another argument.

“Regina,” She turns to look at Regina fully, “Please. Try to understand. I’m here because I’m miserable. Everything that matters to me in my future feels distant to me and I feel helpless to change it. My parents, _you_ , Henry—,” Briefly, her head swarms with the memory, and she suffers through a sensation of falling, as if she were tumbling down a deep dark tunnel. “You’re all so complete without me. You— you,” Her voice tumbles, and she inhales sharply. “There is literally no better future I could imagine than one where I’m with you. If we…we were together, like other families were…more than partners, more than just friends.” She laughs feebly, “God. I would never even _dream_ of time travel if I had that.”

Dark eyelashes flutter. Regina’s forehead settles at last with understanding.

Then, after a long silent moment, Regina slowly removes her hand, settling it back to the mattress beside her.

“I see,” Regina says softly, and frowns at the far wall. Against the frigid morning light, her face looks surprisingly soft, even drawn tight with frowning lines. “I didn’t think about your motives, ” She sighs and closes her eyes. “Very well… I won’t pursue you.”

Emma nods, and looks down again.

“But…” Regina trails a few tentative fingers along Emma’s arm. “When all of this is over…when you return to your real timeline…Would you come back to me?”

A bright painful hope flares into her chest, like the surge of heat in a hot-air balloon. But it is quickly swept away again. She frowns at the wall, watching as rainy light tracts thin rectangles along the dark blue curtains.

“You fall in love with someone else.” Emma says at last when she can speak.

Regina settles her mouth unhappily. “That’s not an answer.”

“Yes it is.” She glances at her, “I can’t return to you if you’re in love with someone _else_.”

“Well then I won’t fall in love with someone else. There, settled.”

“ _No,_ ” Emma gapes, “You can’t just do _that. That- that_ –”

“ _What_?”

“Well first it would fuck up our timeline again,” Emma huffs, “But more importantly, Regina, you can’t …you can’t just block out other people you might love just to wait for me. You’ll be _miserable._ I can’t allow that.”

“So you’re saying you _won’t_ come back to me, then,” Regina surmises darkly, in a tone that clearly means she hasn’t heard Emma at all.

“Regina.” Emma groans.

“ _What_?” Regina snaps. “What if I don’t _want_ someone else?”

“You can’t possibly know how you’ll feel about him _now_ ,” Emma says, though even _her_ Regina never clearly expressed how she actually felt about Robin. Their individual romances never came up in conversations, whether from disinterest or a mutual aversion, she’s not sure. “He’s someone important to you. I don’t want you to shove him out of your life before you even meet him.”

There’s a low, impatient sigh. “Honestly, is there another reason why you don’t want me to pursue you?”

“No,” Emma groans and sinks back into the bed, looking glumly at the ceiling. “Regina, god. Could you at least trust me on _that_?”

Regina huffs. “Well sorry dear, you’ve just changed the game on me a little too many times recently.”

Slowly, after a long moment, Emma turns to find some part of Regina to hold, and finding a foot nearby, she lays the back of two penitent fingers against a bony ankle.

“Regina, I’ve been— I’ve been love with you forever,” she says, and inhales deeply, feeling her breath catch half-way in her throat. “But – I have no idea how you actually feel in my timeline. I was too afraid to ask. You might feel as you do now. Or you don’t. Maybe you love someone else, or maybe I just fuck up too many times and it kills any possibility of love between us, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t ever want you to get to that point and realize that those feelings aren’t there and for you to feel pressured to be with me just because of some promise you made in the past. And I also don’t want you to lose out on love because of me. I want you to be _happy_. Really happy.”

It is rare that Regina ever seems taken-aback. Should anything ever actually surprise her, she will oscillate smoothly from indifference to irritation, but Emma can see the soft wave of her surprise pass over her now with the same slow clarity of moving water. It won’t be the last surprise Emma gives her, and she doubts any will be so amicable as this one.

If Emma knows anything, it’s about how feelings change.

“Okay,” Regina says at last.

The silence falls differently in the air, though lighter this time, it is scrubbed of any softness. The only sound between them comes from the faintly lonesome whistle of the wind outside. 

When Regina slowly falls back down into bed, Emma follows quietly, sliding onto one side again, close enough for her dark hair to tickle her nose.

The room is very quiet, and with just them awake in the dark, breathing quietly, morning seems suddenly further than it was moments ago. She can feel the heat of Regina’s body beside her, and as the wind whistles coldly outside, she finds herself scooting closer without meaning to, feeling comforted by the familiar soft honey smell of Regina’s conditioner,.

For a moment, everything is still.

Then, quietly, Regina reaches back to gently grasp her wrist and pull it close to her chest, calling for an immediate readjustment: Emma slides her arm under Regina’s pillow and scoots closer, curling against Regina in a way that feels so cozy and warm that makes even abstract fantasies like fate and true love seem believable, that all this time they’d been only two halves, awaiting the chance to become one.

To her surprise, Regina gradually nods off, her body easing into a softness that comes only in sleep. In the air, her breathing thickens into a soft snore. Though only a few small hours wait between her and an alarm clock, as Emma listens to the soft steady sound of Regina’s snores, she feels her eyes grow heavier. There, with her nose against the warm nape of Regina’s neck, Emma drifts off to sleep.

***

The alarm – like a piercing clang of dishes – comes to her first through a dream, which merges absurdly with the strangely pleasant adventure she’s on with Regina, tracking through the forest to presumably hunt down a villain though they never find one, the events unfolding calmly, almost in a peaceful manner until the alarm makes the birds break out from the trees in a sudden frenzy.

Groaning and snuggling further against Regina’s body, Emma’s dream soldiers on half-successfully for another few minutes until the warmth of Regina slips away, and the depth of her sleep wanes.

In the distance, there’s the squeak of a shower turning on, the quiet whir of the constant stream of water.

By the time the shower turns off, the bed is finally cold, and Emma groans and rolls onto her back. Her dream pulses as she stares up at the ceiling, and groggily, she slips halfway back into another journey with Regina, chasing down a villain who may or may not destroy the town. It’s something she never thought she’d miss about her life, but, she supposes, there is some layer of truth to that age-old cliché about being away from home.

When the bathroom door opens, Emma props herself up on her elbows and squints through the beam of light that flashes into her eyes from one of Regina’s mirrors.

“Regina?” she calls sleepily.

The bathroom door closes, and there’s a quiet pause, a second or two long, full of waiting.

“Hurry up, dear, before you’re late,” Regina says as she crosses the room, already dressed, clean and presentable with slacks and a sleeveless black crewneck shirt that makes Emma follow the curve of her body a little dumbly.

Looking up, she meets Regina’s eyes in the mirror as she slips on one of her earrings, and though her face is calm and clear, there is no amusement in her eyes.

Emma blinks, and stands up. “I should go.”

“Make sure Henry doesn’t see you on your way out,” is all Regina says before she uncaps her lipstick and glacially follows the line of her lips.

Out the door, in the clean brisk air, Emma shuffles to the edge of the porch stoop, a heavy cement feeling on her heart. She shoves her hands into her jacket and twists her lips, trying to shake off the wounded feeling, as if she’d been unfairly turned out of her own home. She’s being ridiculous, she knows. A little coldness is a good thing. Someone has to cut through the softness between them and considering what awaits at the end of this week, she doesn’t blame Regina for being the one to do it. 

Yet, tears prick at Emma’s eyes and blur her vision as she steps down Regina’s steps and jingles her keys. She glances only once over her shoulder to where the staircase is still visible through the frosty white windows, where her family will soon descend and go about their morning without her. One day very soon, they will go about their days without each other.

With a soft shuffling sigh, Emma slips into her car, letting the quiet rumble of her engine drown out all the noise in her head.

It takes a long hot shower in her mother’s apartment to slow the ragged edge to her thoughts. But her heart cannot be soothed. It wants assurances and promises. It wants to be loved forever no matter the consequences.

By the time Emma reaches the station, she feels like a skittish cat, jumping at every _Good morning_ and bristling over the slightest contact. Though the station is normally empty in the mornings, there being no running deputy, a few volunteers (normally old retirees) will filter in and out to do menial tasks that anyone could do, but given their love fondness for chatting in a warm station and sipping coffee, she rarely turns them away. Today, though, all she wants is to brood in silence.

As the computer hums, Emma pours herself another coffee, and skims through _The Mirror_ , which retains its commitment to small town gossip throughout the years, regardless of memory-wiping curses or town-wide chaos. Always, once a month, a paper will be printed full of tantalizing details about small-town grudges or, more favorably, the drama between the royals. Ex-Evil Queen, Regina Mills, frequents the front page for this very reason, though any interview with her tends to be brief and cursory, unlike Snow White who can skillfully exploit the public’s collective desires to be equally titillated and reassured. Though Emma rarely reads any of the small-town gossip, she keeps her subscription just in case any good articles come up, like the one she ended up cutting out and saving in her desk, the one titled Ex-Evil Queen’s Secret to Happy Endings: Family. The picture used was the very same one on Regina’s desk, the one of her, Emma, and Henry at the beach.

Emma smiles into her coffee. Outside, wispy grey clouds pour across the sky.

She might have been able to turn the corner on her bad mood if her computer had not decided at that moment to pop up a reminder from an event on her calendar

It dings quietly and remains tacked on the corner: [in two hours] _Committee meeting at 11am. Location: Conference room 2_

Emma groans.

She doesn’t think she has the willpower to sit in a chilly room with Regina for an indefinite amount of time, especially if she’ll be receiving the same cold shoulder she got this morning.

Fishing out her phone, Emma calls August.

“Hey,” she says, the moment the line is picked up, “Do we have a timeline yet on when I’m leaving?”

A beat of silence passes, full of static.

Then, August chuckles. “Well, you sound eager,” his voice is deep and gravelly, rough with sleep. “That’s new.”

“Well, I’d like to get this over with, so I know whether I’m dying or not. Did you by chance get any further with the well research?”

“A little,” August yawns. “Did you get any further with breaking up with your Queen?”

Emma settles her mouth. August’s voice is light and cheery, not a hint of malice to it, but she’s in no mood.

“When will we be ready?”

“Soon, I’m sure,” August says, and yawns again, “Jesus. Did you have to call so early?”

Emma glances at her wrist, and feels her mood darken at the absence of her watch.

“Just tell me when we’re ready.” She says and hangs up.

She should sweeten up, she knows – she had, after all, gambled on all of their futures – but if she turned nice now, some part of her spine would give, and she’d never get it back. She’d spend all day seeking out assurance and forgiveness in any of the many faces she needed them from. 

For the next two hours, Emma spends her time on menial tasks, answering emails and queries about parking tickets. She takes one service call near 10:20, in the hopes that it might bar her from attending the meeting at all, but she is turned away upon arrival, the cat having apparently decided that the jump didn’t look so bad after all, and so she makes it to Town Hall at 10:25, a full half hour before she needs to.

Just one of those days.

Emma grumbles as she enters the conference room, the air as deathly cold as it is in Regina’s vault. She sighs heavily as she settles into one of the cold metal chairs in back closest to the window.

Normally, Regina is already here. She tends to set up her presentational material first and review her notes to make sure she doesn’t forget any key details. In these waiting periods, Emma likes to imagine a different version of Regin, one who grown up in this world. She would have been unbearable in high school – a horse girl nerd who hated group work and created 12-slide power point for even the most casual presentations. Emma smiles and drifts in her thoughts.

Time passes. The room gradually fills. The air fills with the sound of restless feet and soft sighs.

By 10:45, almost everyone is present. Except for Regina.

A man in the front leans over to whisper to someone next to him, “Was the meeting cancelled?” to which receives a shrug.

It is a testament to how much her past has changed that by 10:50, everyone in the conference room is looking at her. By their faces, she can tell what they expect her to do. She’s seen the look enough in her own timeline, having made herself both the emergency contact and the first responder in every one of Regina’s disasters, so the look isn’t unfamiliar. But they wouldn’t be looking at her like this if she’d let her past alone, and that settles her stomach with lead.

Slowly, Emma stands, “I’ll uh – go check on her.” She says and receives only nods and half-smiles.

It doesn’t take long to find her. She briefly scans the lobby area once before she goes to the Mayor’s office, where the search ends there.

“Hey,” Emma knocks lightly at the door, a step or two away from the entrance, “You forget about the meeting or something?”

Regina makes a low indistinct sound as acknowledgment and remains at her desk, her fingers steepled against her chin. 

“Uh,” Emma frowns, and shifts a half-step closer. “You okay?”

“Yes,” Regina answers distantly, looking with a dazed sort of concentration at the empty space in front of her eyes as if she were watching a sequence of events visible only to herself unfold in front of her.

“Uh…Are you sure?”

When Regina only hums again, Emma steps into the room and closes the door behind her.

“Regina?” she asks, assuming the soft tone she has for a Regina-in-crisis. “Do you want to cancel the meeting?”

“Sure,” Regina says, which must hide a joke known only to her because one side of her mouth hikes up with a convulsive smile. “Sure. Why not? Let’s just cancel the meeting.”

Regina laughs, and the sound fills Emma’s stomach with a slick oily dread.

“Regina…”

“In fact,” Regina stands, smiling, “Why even go to work? I should just stay home this whole week. Why not?”

“ _Regina_ –”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Regina’s smile sharpens, and her dark eyes turn flat, “What does it matter? Nothing I do _matters_ anymore – The curse will just break, and everything I’ve done to make a life for myself will turn into dust, and all of those people outside, _all of them_ , are going to turn against me like I’m some kind of _villain_.”

“It — it won’t be _forever_.”

“How long, then?” Regina snaps, and in the face of Emma’s silence, she sneers. “Long enough, I imagine, to deserve your silence.”

“Look, I won’t lie to you. It won’t be easy, but —”

“But, one day I’ll be _forgiven_ ,” her mouth curls hatefully. “Is that it? I’ll grovel and grovel and grovel until I’ve earned my place?”

“I—it’s not, like that,” Emma starts and then hesitates, wondering if it’s lie. When Regina’s eyes narrow, she proceeds more carefully, feeling out the sure truth. “I don’t think you’ve ever fought for anyone’s forgiveness. I think…you’ve always just fought for what you love and gradually, everyone else just comes to understand you better.” She grimaces, “It just… takes a little while.”

A beat of silence passes.

“But they _will_ hate me,” Regina says. Her chin quivers suddenly, and then firms, lifting defensively. “ _You_ will hate me. Won’t you?”

“I…” Emma sighs.

“And my _son_ …” Regina wobbles, and touches a steadying hand to the corner of her desk as if she were actually pierced by the thought.

“He will _always_ love you,” Emma stays at the corner of Regina’s desk, close enough to be touched should Regina reach out to her. “He will. He might be angry for a little while, but that doesn’t mean he hates you. The love will always be there.”

The words stay in the air between them as if skating thinly across ice, but they soon wobble and dissolve as Regina lays a finger across a closed eyelid and shakes her head.

“Emma,” Regina exhales heavily. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

Emma winces. Her future, once a straight line, now sits inside her head in a manifold of rows, tiered above one another like bleachers.

“Regina…” Emma starts, then, at a loss, her mouth settles.

She can’t blame Regina. Had the roles been reversed, and it was her with this choice, she can’t imagine actually going through with it. To knowingly set a track for a future that will hurt you so deeply, so severely… even for the promise of happiness at the end, how could anyone do it? 

Dragging her fingers anxiously through her hair, Regina stalks towards the window. Her shoulders roll back, rigid, and straight spine again, the line of her back smooth even in distress. 

When Regina turns back, her dark eyes are shining bright with tears.

“Does the curse really have to break?” Regina asks.

Blood buzzes hotly in Emma’s head, making her a little woozy, but before she can respond, Regina closes the space between them in two small steps and gently grips Emma by the arms.

“I can give you a good life.” Despite the desperation in Regina’s eyes, her voice carries the same sultry, velvety tone of a seduction, “In the curse. It doesn’t have to mean an unhappy ending for us. I could make you happy.”

Emma closes her eyes quickly, sensing in those deep dark eyes the power to make her weak. Already in the cavity of her chest she can feel a growing feebleness, trembling and spilling through her chest like water trembling over a crumpled dam.

“Regina,” Emma undertones, a muted warning.

Regina rubs Emma’s arms softly. “I could give you memories with me and Henry. We could raise him together.” When Emma whimpers, the hands on her arms raise to her cheeks, gently cradling Emma’s face, thumbing beneath her eyes where the prickling has warmed into tears. “Please. Darling. Let me put you in my curse,” Regina presses soft hopeful kisses against the corner of Emma’s mouth, “I can make you so happy. I know I can.”

Eyes closed, Emma stands there, trembling. Seconds pass, maybe minutes. Finally, Emma reaches up to grip one of Regina’s wrists, though she doesn’t have the strength to pull her away.

“It wouldn’t be real.” She says.

Regina emits a soft whimper. Her thumbs press harder along the tops of Emma’s cheekbones.

“But you’d be happy.” She whispers, tears in her throat.

“Maybe,” Emma allows, though she doubts that happiness would exist for either of them down that route. She squeezes Regina’s wrist. “Maybe I would be. For a time. And then I’d disappear.”

Regina lets out a small fretful moan. “I don’t want you to _disappear_.” She gripes and bumps her forehead against Emma’s brow.

Emma smiles softly. “Then the curse has to break.”

A beat of silence passes. And then with a sigh, Regina drops her arms to wrap tightly around Emma’s waist.

“Why a poisoned apple?” she grouses, a tone so achingly familiar Emma can feel a grin tuck into her cheek, “Can’t we find some other way to break the curse?”

“I don’t know,” Emma says, and lifts a shoulder uncertainly. “Maybe. But I can’t guarantee what would happen. I mean, the first time this all happened, I was already on my way out. I was just about to leave town, and then you gave me a poisoned apple turnover to finish the job.” She smirks a little at the memory.

“I really don’t understand how nearly _dying_ helps you break the curse.”

Emma’s smile slides right off again. For a beat or two, she considers not saying anything. But she can imagine what that afternoon would become – the secret would bud like hostile weeds between them. She can imagine those dark eyes welling with the realization of what she has done. What she’s been _told_ to do.

Slowly, Emma steps away.

“I don’t eat it,” Emma says. She can feel the blunt edge of what she’s inferring enter the air and unravel something cold. It sits between them like a rock. “You make it for me, but I’m not the one who bites into it.”

For a moment, Regina stands stoically. Then, slowly, she steps away.

“No.” Regina says. Her chest expands hugely, trembling as though her ribs are struggling to close around her lungs. A hand curls around her forehead, “No, that can’t be what happens.”

“You wouldn’t have dreamt of doing it if you had known –”

“ _No_ – this _can’t_ be how it all happened,” Regina shakes her head. Then, her expression crumples. “My baby? My _baby_?”

“He-he’s okay, he’s—”

“He _lives_ , you mean. He couldn’t possibly be okay, not after –” Regina flinches, the thought too horrible to put in words. “ _How_ can you ask me to do that?”

“I—” she closes her eyes, “God – I wish I knew another way. I wish my life didn’t depend on you making a choice you can’t even imagine making right now. I wish I could take back my _stupid_ wish to go back in time and complicate the hell out of everything just because I was too much of a coward to change it myself, but I _can’t_.”

Regina turns, and walks a few paces away. She looks devastatingly beautiful in the cool light of the window.

“Of course. Because it’s already happened,” Regina says quietly, almost to herself. “Just like, in another timeline, I’ve already hurt him. My curse is already broken. My baby –”

“He’s –”

“He’s fine, yes. You’ve said so,” Regina finishes, deadened, “I imagine this is what you meant by…our relationship being a paradox. I try to kill you to keep him, don’t I? And in doing so, I lose him to you forever.”

“ _No_. Not at all—”

“But you share True Love with him. Don’t you?” Regina cuts in sharply and tilts her chin so that she appears almost floodlit by the cloudy light behind her. “That’s how this all ends, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she sighs, “But –”

“How fitting of an end,” Regina says, quietly, and lays a hand on her chair, settling her. “Almost poetic. The Evil Queen nearly kills her son trying to keep him, and his real mother steps in to save him with True love.”

Emma opens her mouth once more, but suddenly every justification, every scrap of defense feels weak and blithe. She lets out a sigh.

“Our story is a very difficult one,” Emma says, “It’s not very pretty. I don’t blame you for not wanting it. I can tell you that one day this story between us will be the most beautiful thing to me, and that it will be beautiful to you, too,” she sighs, and closes her eyes, “If I could, I’d take it all back. I’d be braver. I’d fight for our story, for _mine_. But I’ve made my choices, and I can’t make you fight it for me.”

A little part of Emma floats away, then. _It probably won’t even hurt,_ she thinks, _just poof, gone._

When Emma opens her eyes, Regina is watching her stonily. Analyzing her, searching likely, for an indication of deceit or some flare of performance.

Finally, Regina looks away. She sighs “Is there any point in looking for another way?”

“Maybe. But I’m not sure if it’ll work. I don’t think I would have stayed for anything else,” Emma says honestly, flatly, cutting out any squirming instinct inside to convince or cajole, “I just -- I didn’t believe in anything. I was a wall of a person, until I met you and Henry,” A small helpless smile curls into her cheek, “When I met you two, everything changed. All I wanted to do was stick around and try. But I wasn’t _good_ at it – at any of it. I kept fucking up with Henry, and breaking his heart, just like you predicted. And nothing was working out like I hoped with you so –” she laughs, “I got scared. I would have run away. I don’t think I would have stayed for anything else.”

Regina nods, and tightens her fingers along her chair, straightening out her shoulders again.

She sighs.

“I just can’t see how I can live with this.”

“You do. You learn how to,” Emma immediately wrinkles her mouth at such a derisory response. But it’s what she’s watched Regina do for years, after every defeat, every slip, every loss: she struggled, she learned, she came back. Emma huffs out a breath, “I wish I could just show you how it all happens. How much you mean to us. We just – we love you for all of it. All the bad stuff you’ve done, all the good. Everything. All of it.”

Silence settles between them. Distantly, footsteps scuffle along the stairwell, and then turn right. A door closes. Somewhere, in another office below them, perhaps, a woman laughs.

“So, we really do become …a family.” Regina says the word slowly, tentatively, as if it were sharp on her togue. Tilting her head up, she observes Emma more closely. “ _We_ become family.”

There’s a different sort of question there that Emma catches, though thorny and hard to untangle as it is.

“Yes,” Emma answers slowly, just as tentatively. “We’re family.”

When Regina’s dark eyes don’t soften or well, she continues timidly.

“We’re, you know, close. I may have never had a family before, but I know that there’s something real special about a family that fits like we do,” Heat prickles on Emma’s cheeks, feeling suddenly twelve years old, asking for the family she loved dearly to please take her home. She shrugs and stares at the floor. “I think we’re pretty special, anyways.”

With her eyes on the floor, Emma can’t see Regina’s expression, but as heels slowly click across the floor, she suspects that whatever Regina had been looking for with that question, Emma’s answer must have satisfied it.

The sharp cedar-like smell of perfume fills the air. The space warms with their proximity, and then, after a beat of hesitation, Regina steps forward to press their bodies together, delicately resting her chin on Emma’s shoulder.

Twitching with surprise, Emma feels her arms open and hang in the air around them like the awkward, haphazard arms of a scarecrow.

As Regina slides her arms around Emma’s waist, whatever scant air and space between them flutters out. Hardly daring to hope, Emma carefully wraps her arms around Regina’s back. She lays her cheek against Regina’s dark hair.

A minute passes, and as rain patters softly against the window, a picture of Henry smiles up at them from the desk.

“I’m that close friend you mentioned before,” Regina whispers softly. Her voice sounds suddenly rich, only thinly containing her satisfaction. “Aren’t I?”

Startled, Emma laughs. She winds her arms tightly around Regina _. Of course_ Regina would remember that. Of course.

“You are.” Emma puts her smile against Regina’s cheek, nuzzling her. “Of course you are.”

Regina hums contently.

Then, squeezing her a little closer, Regina asks: “Am I your _best_ friend?”

“Yes,” Emma chuckles. “By far the best I’ve had, though definitely not the easiest.”

“That’s alright,” Regina answers smugly, and Emma laughs again. A beat passes, and fingers rove gently up Emma’s back. “And when you go back to the future?” she asks vaguely, inconclusively, though Emma knows exactly what she’s asking.

Emma tightens her grip and waits the urge to promise her everything. It would be so easy to get caught up in romance, to forget that Regina had actually seemed pretty happy in their future. Her life had a wholeness to it, complete now with her son, her friends, her wish-verse _soulmate_ who, sure, may have kept his distance more so than a boyfriend is expected to, but he’s still invited to all the family outings. He’s still referenced vaguely in conversations about Regina, even if Regina hardly ever mentions him. It was _Emma’s_ happiness that was lacking. Not Regina’s.

“You fall for someone else.” Emma says softly, a reminder to herself and anyone who’d listen.

Regina hums softly. “I really can’t imagine it.”

She offers a friendly smile; one she wears in their future together. “You’ll see.”

“I suppose I’ll have to,” Regina sighs, and leans her cheek more firmly against Emma’s. A beat passes. Then, with a sigh, “Should we actually cancel the meeting?”

Emma laughs softly. “I don’t know. Is anyone still there?”

Regina sighs. “I hope not.”

“Let’s go, and then if they’re there, we’ll do the meeting. Sound good?”

“I suppose.”

Yet, Regina doesn’t leave Emma’s embrace. She stays where she is, her arms wrapped tightly around Emma, and her cheek warm against hers. Softly, Emma smooths her palms up and down Regina’s back, enjoying the cool, silky texture of Regina’s shirt and the firm muscles beneath, the soft honey smell of her conditioner.

Emma clears her throat, “Maybe we can do something with Henry after school?” she says and feels Regina smile against her cheek.

“Yes. Let’s.”

***

Everyone is still waiting for them in the conference room. Regina walks in as unapologetically as if she had simply scheduled the meeting at 11:30 and everyone else had just come early.

Emma slinks to the back, her old chair waiting for her.

Above them the projector hums and beams white on the wall. When Regina slides down the screen, the words _Projected Annual Budget for 2013-2014_ becomes visible. The room fills with soft sighs and restless shifting, which is immediately silenced with one sharp look from Regina.

Emma pillows her head with an arm and leans against the windowpane, blissfully ignoring the soft glares from her fellow detainees. She’s used to those, too.

***

When Henry spots them both waiting for him at the end of the school yard, he slows though he doesn’t stop, walking cautiously across the cement towards the curb, having been told to never cross the street alone. Regina crosses the street to meet him and stands in the busy school lot littered with yellow leaves to bend and give him a kiss on the cheek. Henry receives the kiss gently, his wary, serious eyes on Emma the whole time.

Since the air is so chilly, they decide to get cups of hot spiced cider and decide to walk to the new park, which Henry has already warmed to, having been told in advance that it would be a safer substitute for his castle. It’s only a slight discrepancy from their original lives, and Emma rather likes the thought that somewhere in this complicated mess she’s made there are little traces of happiness she’ll leave behind.

When Regina stops briefly by her car to pick up a heavier coat for Henry, he turns to her at last with hot flashing eyes.

“I thought you said you’d _wait_ to be her friend.” He whispers, reprovingly.

“I know,” Emma shrugs, a soft embarrassed smile crinkling into her cheek, “We kind of mixed up the timing a bit. But I think it’ll all work out in the end.”

Henry presses his lips in a hard curve downward. When worried, he looks exactly like his Mom.

“Okay,” he says at last, reluctantly. “I guess it can’t hurt. Just …don’t make this any more painful for her than it has to be.”

Though still only ten, Emma can already see the protective, square-jawed look he will master by sixteen to use in swift defense of his Mom’s happiness.

Emma smiles tenderly down at their kid, stomach in ropes. “I sure hope I don’t, buddy.”

When Regina returns, Henry allows himself to be fussed over and even kissed a few more times on the cheek, likely sensing from his Mom’s eyes the imminent devastation that would pour out of her if not immediately assured of his love.

The park is a good fifteen-minute walk through elm and maple trees, which can be beautiful in October, but in November, almost all the leaves have fallen off and turned into a slick yellow plaster on the roads. But, despite the chill, no one seems willing to give up their endeavor just yet. They walk together with Styrofoam cups of hot cider, shivering in the late afternoon light, passing through tiny beams of yellow and red light that the trees hold above their heads like a lattice of color. Though chilly, a sleepy contentment is rising up inside of Emma, nearly carrying her all the way over into a daydream, one where she has safely returned to a future far simpler and lovelier than the one waiting for her – one just between the three of them.

Maybe it’s not too late.

When they arrive at the park, Henry spots one of his friends hanging off one of the monkey bars and tentatively makes his way toward him. Emma wipes a nearby bench down with her hand, then again with Regina’s handkerchief before they both give up and settle on the cold hard wood regardless of the rain.

Emma cradles her hot apple cider beneath her chin and hums contently, stretching out her arm across Regina’s side of the bench. Regina watches Henry awkwardly navigate an early friendship with a tender sort of pain that is quickly approaching agony.

“He has friends, right?” Regina asks, almost teeming now with motherly distress. “In our future?”

“Yeah,” Emma answers slowly, and squints her eyes to better her memory.

She’d never been all that good with names, especially since her kid had slipped rather quickly through a few circles of friends in the transition from middle school to high school. The kids who were coming and going from the Mayor’s house went from nerdy boys to a group of rangy kids who skulked around town like cats, then after a particularly bad falling out with them, he stuck to being friends almost exclusively with girls.

Regina narrows her eyes. “Don’t lie to me. I’ll know if you do. Eventually.”

Emma snorts, and rolls her eyes, “He _will_. I mean, he’s never going to be popular, but he’s got friends. He’s happy.”

Regina regards her closely for another minute before she returns her attention to Henry, who is now playing what looks like a very strategic game of hide and seek. For a while, they both just sit and watch as Henry clumsily runs around the wet tanbark after Nick – or is it Ben? 

“He doesn’t ever get into football does he?” Regina asks tightly, her brow already wrinkled at the thought of all the imaginary injuries that could befall her son.

Emma laughs, “Regina, he’s _your_ son. His favorite thing to do is stay inside and read his books and watch Star Wars with his Mom.”

Regina shoots her a small glare, but Emma can see from the glow in her eyes that she’s pleased.

A moment of peace passes between them. Regina sips the last of her apple cider, making it very clear with every sip, though perfectly silent, that her recipe is superior.

It could almost be just any other day. Almost.

“How do I even get my hands on your mother’s cursed apple?” Regina asks, and though her expression remains steely focused, her mood is descending quickly towards melancholy.

“You never told me,” Emma says, and shrugs, “I’m guessing you might have had to slip through time yourself to pick it up.”

Regina nods, and settles into a contemplative kind of silence. Emma doesn’t mind. It’s enough to be here, to sit beside Regina once more as they watch their kid play, even if this moment is the only one they will ever share again.

On a nearby maple tree, a crow drops onto a thin branch, wobbles a little, off balanced, and then rights itself again. Emma watches the slightly clumsy balancing act with a faint smile, remembering fondly when Regina had slipped quite unexpectedly on ice not long after Neverland, and though their friendship had been tentative at best, she had reached out for Emma; that one split-second settled in Emma forever a determination to save Regina from harm or else be taken down with her.

“It was the _same_ _exact_ one as your mother’s?”

“Yes,” Emma laughs warmly, “You love a little dramatic irony.”

“It’s clever,” Regina admits, and smiles that flat-line smile when Emma playfully nudges her with her shoulder. “I just can’t imagine devising such a plan now.”

“Things were more tense the first time around,” Emma says. Above her, the crow takes off again and glides smoothly across the crisp blue sky. “I mean, it got kind of ugly. You frame my mother for murder, then I try to kidnap Henry, so honestly a poisoned apple turnover felt like the obvious next step.”

“I frame your mother for _murder_?”

“Yeah,” Emma laughs, a little louder than she expected to, the old bitterness between them having long taken a turn to amusing. “I don’t think you’ll have time to fit that in, but hey, if you’re feeling up to it, I say go for it.”

Blinking, a little astonished, Regina lets out a single laugh that sounds more like a startled puff of air and shakes her head. The back of her shoulders melt slowly and sinks her whole body the back of the hard wood. There, Regina looks up to the sky with a serene incredulity, all the lines wiped clear from her face.

“What?” Emma asks finally, smiling.

“Nothing,” Regina says lightly and angles her head to give Emma one of those fond side-long look where her dark eyes are all glittery and warm. “I think I’m just going to really miss you.”

Emma’s heart flops around her chest like a fish on a line.

“Oh…” She breathes. It’s a starter that’s supposed to have a finish, but all she can do is sort of blink stupidly and warm up behind the ears.

She’d love to say, _I’ll miss you too_ but in reality the gap for her will be a period of a few seconds before she is either safely on the other side or gone forever.

For Regina, it will be months before anything remotely warm slips between them, and years before they settle comfortably into friendship.

Regina’s eyes flick briefly up and down her face before her mouth crinkles. “It’ll be a while, won’t it?”

Emma thinks about telling her just how long, but her heart trembles at the thought of watching the comprehension of the total years of waiting slowly unfold in Regina’s face and settle finally on the realization that Emma is not worth waiting, after all.

“Yeah, it will.” Emma croaks.

Regina nods. She sips her hot cider. “How much time before you go?”

“A few days. Maybe.”

Nodding again, Regina sighs. “It’ll be quite a dramatic switch with the other you,” She looks to Henry, “It’ll confuse Henry, if he doesn’t know.”

“I don’t know if I can tell him…”

“No,” Regina answers quickly, “He can’t learn about time travel through you, that would definitely be a paradox. But…he should understand that there will be a change.”

“Alright.” Emma says, softly. She hesitates. “Should I…” she shifts, and feels suddenly waterlogged, unbearably heavy. “Should I stay away, too? To make things easier?”

Of course, none of this could ever be easy. But a little space might clear the ambiguity fa little. For Henry. For Regina, too.

Though she has no doubt that Regina will remember her earlier anger once her past-self returns, she’s also certain that had Regina displayed even a little bit of softness towards Emma, that she would have softened. That’s all it ever really took for her, anyway. Even after the curse broke and the truth exposed, all of which were varying levels of horrifying – all it took was a small smile and a crinkle around the eyes, and Emma was reeled to Regina again as if she were hooked to a fishing line. 

There’s a pause. Then Regina curves a thumbnail into the Styrofoam cup, poking a small hole through the top.

“Yes,” she says finally, a clipped unhappy sound, and doesn’t speak to Emma again for the remainder of their afternoon. Silence washes over them, erasing any talk of plans or thoughts on making things easier.

***

“Here to get the Mayor her coffee?”

Emma grunts, and settles her arms sharply on counter, immediately grimacing as her loosely knitted sweater brushes against a syrupy stickiness.

“Shit,” she grumbles, and yanks a nearby cloth napkin, “No, I’m not doing any of that stuff anymore. We uh…” decided not to see each other anymore? No. “Got in a fight.”

“Oh…” Ruby’s smirk dwindles slowly on her face. “Shit, sorry. What did you do?”

“Hey, why are you so sure it’s my fault?”

Ruby gives her a plain, dry look. Which. Alright. Through all of the years they’ve known each other, 3/4ths of the arguments they get into _do_ tangentially come from some stupid, impulsive thing Emma did.

“Alright, fine.” Emma allows, “But it’s not _totally_ my fault.”

Since they had mutually agreed to no longer be on speaking terms, they might as well split the blame down the middle, too.

“Yeah, sure.” Ruby says lightly and grabs a wet rag to wash off the dried syrup. “I’m sure whatever stupid thing you’ve done, the missus will forgive you soon.”

Missus. Emma’s heart flutters stupidly before reality smooths her out again like a hot iron. With a long sigh, Emma sinks back onto her elbows.

“Oh, wow.” Ruby wrinkles her mouth sympathetically. “It’s that bad, huh?”

“It’s not totally hopeless,” Emma mutters, and blows a strand of hair out of her eyes. “But it won’t be fixed anytime soon.”

“Well, in that case,” Ruby sets a paper cup down on the counter beside Emma, “A coffee couldn’t hurt.”

When Emma leaves the diner, she plans on just drinking two cups of coffee that day. Yet, somehow, as she walks down Main street, struggling for her keys in her pocket and two cups in one hand, she finds herself walking accidentally past her car and meandering down into Main street. She only notices when she catches sight of the dignified row of mauve-colored maple trees that guard Town Hall.

Emma slows to a stop. She squints up at the Town Hall stairwell, and hesitates, striking a small pebble off the sidewalk.

Well, what else is she going to do? Walk _back_ with two coffees?

Knocking on the Mayor’s door lightly, Emma stands slightly awkwardly in the entryway with two coffees in her hand as her only defense.

“What is it?” Regina directs a brief, dry look at Emma before returning to her computer screen. It takes a moment, then she snaps her head back to Emma’s face. “ _Emma_.” She says, in an indecipherably sharp voice, seemingly mingled both with pleasant surprise and annoyance.

“Hey,” Emma smiles weakly.

Regina gives her a glare, though her eyes sparkle.

“I thought we agreed we wouldn’t do this anymore.”

“Ruby gave me a free one,” Emma carefully advances, uncertain whether she’s being charming or completely unfair. She offers a warm smile, “And I will apparently take any lame excuse I can get to see you.”

Something warm flares behind Regina’s eyes. Then, it dwindles to a glow of embers, and she sighs. Emma winces, because Regina _does_ think she’s charming, and that’s why it’s unfair.

Dropping her gaze to her computer screen, Regina flexes her fingers and returns them to the keyboard.

“Leave it on my sideboard.” She says, and nods to it with her chin though she doesn’t have to. Emma knows the one.

***

After that, Emma keeps her distance.

Another two days pass. She doesn’t see much of Regina. Any interaction she does have with her is brief and frigid and purely professional which often leaves her moping around her apartment with tear-filled eyes as if she’d been dumped. She can’t say what actually happened, but Mary Margaret seems to have picked up on her melancholy all the same and declared that it’ll be just them this next week, “no boys” allowed, which might have made Emma sulk more if she were not so relieved to have her mom’s attention again.

She calls August once late in the afternoon, but it goes straight to voicemail which at least gives her something to worry about. She visits Granny the next morning.

“Can I just leave a message?”

Granny’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “Now, I don’t want to get mixed up in any affair-business, you hear me?”

Emma blanches. “I’m not – we’re not a—” Crap, “He’s a _friend,_ Christ. And Regina and I aren’t even –”

Granny waves her hand, “I said I want _no part_ in this. If there are secret trysts occurring in my rooms, I can normally turn a blind eye, but not if they come at a risk of a heart-broken mayor shutting down my business.”

“Oh for the love of –” Emma groans, “Can you just tell me whether he’s still coming down for breakfast, so I know he’s still alive?”

Granny gives her one last withering glare before she puts her glasses onto her face and glances down at her spreadsheet.

“Yes,” she says, finding his name with a pencil point, “He’s come down every day so far. Satisfied?”

“Great,” Emma mutters. Then, with the part of her still prickling at the insinuations, on her way out of the door she grumbles, “And I would _never_ cheat. Ever.”

Later that afternoon, as she walks Henry back to school, he asks. “Did you and Mom have a fight?”

Emma is watching Henry carefully balance along a mansion’s border wall made of unsteady-looking rocks, and though a hand is hovering securely behind his back, her attention is still focused devoutly on his small feet, so when the question comes, it floats stiffly across other worries: _One little slip, Regina upset, Gone, Poof, Just like that._

As Henry’s steps up onto a higher rock, his sneaker slips to the side before he quickly finds his balance again. Emma’s heart settles again, beating a little harder than before.

“Did you hear me?” Henry asks.

“Hm?” Emma looks up to find Henry’s small face wrinkled with worry. “Aw, sorry buddy. Something about your Mom?”

“Yeah,” Henry sticks his hands glumly into his little black coat. “Did you and my Mom fight?”

“Oh,” Standing suddenly very still in the cold, Emma wavers transiently between an old lie and a new one. “Well.”

“Don’t lie,” Henry warns with such unflinching intensity that Emma’s heart jolts just the same as if Regina had spoken.

“Look. It’s…a little hard to explain.”

Henry’s big eyes well immediately with tears. “So my Mom and you _are_ arguing?”

God. Why does this feel so much like a divorce talk? Emma lets out a long sigh and drags her fingers through her hair. On the rock border, Henry is only a few inches shorter than her. One day, he will grow taller than both his Moms, and still show signs of growing.

“Here, let’s sit and talk.” Emma says, and sits on the cold hard rock beside her kid.

When Henry only stares glumly down at her, Emma gently grasps the corner of Henry’s sleeve, tugging gently until her kid groans and plops down into the empty space beside her. Her kid lets out a heavy sigh that sounds almost ancient. It’s the sound a rock might make if it had the chance to talk.

“You and my Mom aren’t going to be friends anymore, are you?” he asks his feet.

“We will.” Emma says, hesitantly. She is aware that every word of hers will be remembered. Her kid has the ability to perceive truth the way a jeweler instantaneously knows the true quality of a diamond. If she reveals even a speck of dishonesty, he’ll push her to unravel everything.

Henry gives her a side-long glare, his eyes glittering.

“Look, kid,” Emma wraps her arm around Henry’s small shoulders. “I _will_ be your Mom’s friend. One day. But I made a bit of a mistake by befriending your Mom so soon.”

Henry’s face turns wary. “Why?”

“Well, because I like your Mom, and that makes it difficult to break the curse.”

When Henry only squints up at her, she sighs.

“Look. Breaking the curse is not going to be pretty. It’s going to change everything, and it’s going to take a great deal out of both of us. It’ll be a necessary change that will be good for us overall, I think, but it’s not something we can do together.”

“Yeah, but things don’t _have_ to change between you and Mom!” Henry beseeches, “You said you like her! You already know about the curse, and all the horrible things she’s done, and you still like her! Why can’t you guys just be friends and break the curse together? I don’t think Mom will be too mad about the curse breaking if she gets to keep us.”

Emma swallows and tucks her fingers slowly into her palm. After a beat, she draws Henry closer. 

“Your Mom is going to do anything she can to protect her curse,” Emma says, “That doesn’t mean she’s heartless, or doesn’t deserve a second chance or anything. But she _will_ protect her curse. Because right now the curse allows her to be with you, so she’s going to do everything in her power to keep the curse intact because it’s her way of keeping _you_. Do you understand that?”

Henry’s chest quivers. But at last, he nods.

“Good,” she heaves out a breath. “Because of that, your Mom and I will have to be on opposite sides. She’s going to protect her way of life and I’m going to have to destroy it, and that’ll uproot everything. Not just her curse, but her connection to you. That will be… _unbearable_ for your mother. Do you understand that?”

Henry nods his head again, completely mum, though Emma can see the tears welling in his eyes.

“Friends are supposed to love each other, and protect each other,” Emma says, “And I promise that one day I’m going to love and protect your Mom. But I can’t feel that for her right now. I can’t love and protect her and still destroy everything that matters to her. I know if I’m friends with your Mom right now, I won’t be able to do what I need to. So I can’t feel this way right now.” Then an idea comes to her. It clicks together, and almost nearly fits. Emma takes a deep, steadying breath, and closes her eyes. “And in a few days, I won’t anymore.”

Henry’s brow creases upward and pinches together.

“What do you mean?” his voice wavers, “What are you going to do?”

“A memory potion. When I take it, it’ll be like this month never happened,” Emma says. When Henry gasps and leans back, she lets her hand slide to the back of his neck. “I know that sounds – I wish it didn’t have to be like this. But I can’t be soft with your Mom right now. There’s just too much at risk.”

“So you’ll go back to how it was before?” Henry’s voice rasps thickly like wet leather. “Like you never cared about my Mom _at all_.”

“I will _always_ care about your Mom,” Emma says, “Even if it seems like I don’t. Even when I’m angry. I will still care, because she will always be your Mom, and I _love_ that about her, even when I’m too angry to see it. Because of that she will always matter to me.”

Henry wobbles, his eyes large and sad. By the big breath he takes, Emma can tell that he’s trying to be brave.

“Okay.” He says at last.

Emma rubs between his shoulder gently, then slides away. She stares out at the black asphalt road where yellow and red leaves cover the sidewalk in patches like a quilt.

“It’ll be better when the curse breaks,” she says, quietly. “I’ll be able to love and protect her, like I do now.”

“Okay.” Henry whispers.

Leaves scuttle across the ground and flutter into flat pools of water. A car passes quietly, the asphalt wet and tacky beneath the tires. Emma watches it go until the red lozenges of its taillights disappear around the corner. 

“Maybe remind me of that. Later,” Emma says, almost distantly. “Without these memories, I’ll be really angry when the curse breaks. And lost. I might not remember why I care about her. But if you remind me….I will.” She looks down at her kid. “Will you do that for me, kid? Will you remind me?”

“Yeah,” Henry says softly. “I will.”

***

Late that evening, as Emma stares at her shadowed ceiling struggling to fall asleep, she thinks she hears a knock on her door. But it’s nearly 10pm, and so Emma turns on her side and ignores it.

Until about thirty seconds later when there’s another knock on her door, louder and more pronounced than the last.

Frowning, Emma slides out of bed and stumbles down the stairs, wincing at the touch of cold metal against her bare feet. At this point, the knocking has picked up again, now loud enough for the loose, rusty hinges to rattle against the sea-soaked doorframe.

With one anxious glance at Mary Margaret’s darkened hallway, Emma unlocks door and swings it open.

“What?” she snaps. She’s not even a little surprised to see Regina in the dim hallway, but the sight of her wild-eyed, all in black, and her lips nearly purple in the dark has her blinking at her dumbly. “Regina?”

Regina stalks inside a few paces before she turns around and faces Emma again. Her eyes are pitch and wild with something that folds Emma’s stomach with a nervous kind of excitement. A look like that could only mean two things – a fight or another sort of entanglement altogether.

“Regina, are you --?”

In two steps, Regina is right in front of her again. “How can I possibly know everything will be alright?” she asks. “After the curse breaks. After everything-everything that I’ve done, no one could forgive that. He won't forgive that. You-” Her voice sticks in her throat. "What if you don't forgive me?"

Emma blinks once. “Regina, I _promise you_ , once –”

Another step, and Regina is close enough to kiss, her breathing heavy and harried across Emma’s mouth.

“How will I know you will love me again?” she whispers and slides her hands around Emma’s waist.

Heart thudding loudly in her throat, Emma closes her eyes. “Regina—”

“How do I know which decisions will be the right one. How can I be certain that everything will be alright,” Regina’s hands coast around the back where Emma’s pajama shirt is rumpled, the skin is exposed. Her breath hitches as she splays her fingers hungrily across Emma’s back, drawing her nearer. “How do I know you’ll come back to me.”

Emma’s eyelashes flutter as Regina presses their bodies closer, circling both arms around Emma’s waist. The space between her skin and her clothes warm uncomfortably, and her heart thunders in her throat, yet still in some faraway corner in Emma’s mind she is distantly aware that her mother’s door is the first one in the hallway, and though the walls thick with exposed brick, Regina’s voice can carry.

Emma forces herself to step back, breathing with difficulty as she breaks the secure ring of Regina’s embrace.

“Regina,” she settles her fingers firmly against her shoulder, trying to ground herself with a familiar gesture. Her thumb strokes back and forth, and the sound of wrinkling thin fabric stirs her mind away from the heat in her skin. “I promise you that whatever changes come to our future, it will not be powerful enough to stop the love your family has for you.”

In the dim light, the depth of Regina’s eyes seem to widen and contract, like the lens of a camera. Struggling to believe in an idea of love that she has no knowledge on. It wells feeling in Emma’s chest, knowing her completely in this way.

Swallowing quietly, Regina tilts her head to peer at Emma from the side as if a slightly new angle could help reveal all the information she needs. 

With a deep breath Emma joins her other hand to gently grip both of Regina’s shoulders.

“You have so much love in your future, Regina,” she says, and wills her voice to swell with the feeling in her chest. “That’s not going away. I promise.”

A quiet moment passes. Regina watches Emma unblinking, her eyes sharp and close, and Emma swipes her thumbs along Regina’s shoulders again, trying to distract herself again from the blooming red warmth in her skin. The thought of Regina’s mouth. Those slender hands. The sound of her moans running up against Emma’s ear.

Regina tilts her chin, and Emma blinks, and finds her eyes again.

“Whose?” she asks. Her voice is surprisingly smooth, clear of the wobbling softness it had before.

Emma blinks, “Whose?”

“Yes,” she whispers, and steps an inch closer, close enough for her minty breath to slide against Emma’s cheek. “Whose love do I have?”

Her throat suddenly dry, Emma gulps, and resists the urge to step back for fear of looking dishonest.

“You have Henry’s,” Emma begins, and feels a reckless kind of laugh build in her throat. “And your…partner’s obviously…”

Regina doesn’t blink or shift away. Her expression remains unchanging, intense though indecipherable.

In the expectant silence, Emma feels herself begin to tremble, the weight of what she feels exposed in the dim space between them. It’s her longest held secret, and the most difficult one she’s had to hold onto. The corners of her mouth tremble and pull down with the weight of it.

“And mine,” Emma whispers. “You’ll have mine.”

At last, Regina steps forward again, her face clutched by an enormous feeling. She slides her hands up over Emma’s arms and draws her again close enough to skim the slope of Emma’s jaw with her lips.

“Show me.” Regina breathes into Emma’s ear. 

Shuddering, Emma closes her eyes, and slides a hand into Regina’s black hair. The trembling warmth in her chest grows, racketing up the back of her neck and into her throat as she bends to cover Regina’s mouth with her own.

Their magic sparks fiercely against their lips, like a firecracker, drawing a surprised gasp from both of them. Then Emma is winding her arms around Regina’s waist, and drawing her impossibly close again, crushing her lips against Regina’s.

A soft ragged moan vibrates between their open mouths, their breathing becoming loud enough to eddy against the dull red bricks. Disengaging with a slight twist of her head, Emma shifts back a step, glancing nervously to the darkened hallway. But before she can fully step towards the stairs, she’s hauled to a stop by two hands closing fiercely around her elbows.

“Where are you going?” Regina demands, eyes wild. 

With a soft snort, Emma leans back to brush against Regina’s mouth, “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that your arch nemesis lives here, too.”

“My arch nemesis?” Regina’s mouth curves against Emma’s. “I thought that’s who I came for.”

"Oh, so now _I'm_ the arch nemeses?" Laughing softly, Emma leans down for one more kiss. She hums, enjoying the warm dry feeling of Regina’s mouth against her own. "How often do your arch nemeses fall in love with you, huh?"

"Hm. You'd be surprised how thin the line is." 

_Ass_ , she thinks. Still, she whispers "Come upstairs," against Regina's expectant mouth.

***

Twenty minutes later, they are both half-naked on Emma’s rumpled bed with Regina straddling her lap, balancing herself breathlessly along Emma’s shoulders as hungry, open-mouthed kisses rove down Regina's bare chest.

It’s almost a surprise how easy it is. Following Regina’s needs came as instinctively to her as catching onto a lie.

She’d gotten nervous somewhere half way up the stairwell as she led Regina up to her bedroom; having never been with a woman before, she knew it was bound to be filled with certain techniques she had no way of knowing given that she had only connected the dots on her weirdly intense feelings for Regina a few years ago. She felt as though she had finally flicked on a light only to find herself in a locked room, what with Robin at Regina’s heels, and her Mom constantly fussing over a newborn replacement baby, it seemed like revealing that her heart wasn’t as walled off as she’d thought and rather set on a woman was the quickest way to fall straight out of her family’s lives forever. So she kept it to herself, watched a few raunchy movies every once in a while when everyone else was finally asleep, and pretended to be happy.

Now, though, she cannot fathom how she did it. Not anymore, not with Regina’s fingers in her hair, and Regina’s skin beneath her lips. Not now that she knows how Regina sounds when Emma bites her neck or how she wrings her fingers through Emma’s hair.

Emma gasps as a hand snags through her hair again, tilting her face upward suddenly for another kiss, their lips sticking with what remains of Regina’s lipstick. Regina whimpers gratefully when Emma rakes her fingernails down the sensitive skin of Regina’s outer thighs. 

“Touch me, please,” Regina pants against her mouth.

As Emma’s brain lags, Regina growls and reaches behind her to grab Emma’s hand and cement it firmly around her inner thigh, far beneath her tight skirt.

Emma may have never slept with a woman before, but she knows enough about Regina to not immediately gratify her every wish. So, smirking, she slides her fingers into the warm hot space between Regina’s legs, her index finger and middle finger extending into a sharp V to rub against the silk of Regina’s underwear in firm strokes that perfectly avoid her clit. 

A hitch of breath revs beneath Regina’s groan as the grip on Emma’s shoulders becomes punishingly tight. For a while Regina rocks against her, struggling to move her hips in a way that will rub Emma’s fingers against her clit, ever deftly grazing it.

“Emma.” Regina growls, enough real danger in her voice for Emma’s body to buzz briefly in acknowledgment. 

Tipping forward, Emma slides her mouth up Regina’s neck to suck gently against her pulse point. As Regina groans, Emma splays a hand across Regina’s back for some kind of support as she combines her fingers to firmly caress in the center of Regina’s silky underwear, just barely grazing her clit as she strokes firmly up and down.

“ _Emma_ ,” Regina rasps out into the air, squeezing her eyes closed, her face gripped with such desperation that any resolve melts away from Emma, and has her pushing Regina’s underwear down her legs, allowing another quick moment of adjustment so that the skirt can be pushed down as well and kicked off to the side of the bed.

Clutching Regina closer, Emma touches tentatively at first, feeling out the quivering skin, and then, finding her soaking wet and so very ready, she presses in. She starts slow, but goes deep. Regina groans, and follows the rhythm, her breath hitching at the end as Emma’s knuckles press against her pelvic bone.   
  
For a while, they fuck like this. Slow, without rush. Regina’s fingers curl into the back of Emma’s neck to guide her mouth back to her breasts. She groans softly when Emma begins to lick, her teeth slipping against the tip of her nipple.

After a few minutes, Emma grimaces, feeling her grip slacken with sweat. Broadening her legs, she drags Regina closer to her body so that their movement shallows, becoming frantic with the close contact of their bodies. Keeping one hand on Regina's back, Emma angles her fingers upward to just barely graze the clit with stroke. 

A harsh, gripped look of bliss crosses Regina’s face as she follows Emma’s pace, groaning as she runs her hips into Emma's fingers. Their rhythm speeds up, filling the room fills with the sound of their slick movements and the hot rushed sound of their breathing.

"Faster," Regina gasps with a harried breath and slides her arms around Emma’s shoulders. Emma picks up the pace, going deeper, staying close, watching in amazement as Regina whimpers and drops forward, her back and shoulders bowing as she rocks into Emma, her eyes fluttering with each stroke.

The sounds Regina makes turns rough and loud. It fills Emma's head, buzzing high and red in her ears, thrumming beneath a growing urgency to _show her_ , to show her all of her love. Gripping Regina’s back a little more closely, Emma repositions herself slightly until she feels her fingers sliding against a soft rough patch that has Regina groaning obscenely. Tipping forward, Regina mushes her mouth against the soft space next to Emma’s ear so that she can run a constant thread of curses so desperate it make Emma’s neck burn red.

The movement speeds up on its own then, and Regina’s curses turns into her name, spoken again and again and again as she rides Emma’s fingers.

“Oh, oh, _oh_ —” Regina gasps, and then with a strangled little yelp, almost sharp with surprise, she shudders, and squeezes tightly around Emma’s fingers.

Haltingly, Regina tilts forward, resting her forehead against Emma’s cheek. An arm flops over Emma’s shoulder, clutching her closer.

Closing her eyes, still inside of her, Emma nuzzles her face into the soft angle of Regina’s neck, and breathes in. _Beautiful_ , she thinks, completely lost on her all over again.

Since Regina doesn’t seem inclined to move anytime soon, Emma soothes a hand up and down Regina’s back as she gently slides her fingers out.

Regina sighs and squeezes her thighs around Emma’s hips. She makes a quiet pained sound then, nudging Emma with her hips until the gears in Emma’s mind start turning again, and she falls back onto the bed, holding out her arms for Regina to settle into.

There, lying against each other, their bodies shivering slightly with a sheen of sweat, a warm contentment settles in all the places they are touching, and seeps over to the rest of them.

With a soft sigh, Regina settles her cheek against Emma’s. Though her body is still humming with arousal, with the pleasant warmth of Regina’s body resting contently on top of her, she feels sated, complete.

Regina lets out a quiet content hum. She tilts her head slightly to nuzzle against Emma’s neck, loses herself to a few slow soft kisses there.

Then, settling deeper in Emma’s arms, she sighs. “Tell me a good memory.”

Emma registers the words slowly, rustling the calm that’s settled over her. Tilting her head slightly, Emma peers up at Regina. Her dark hair has settled messily across her face, her lipstick nearly all gone except for the smudge at the corner. Her eyes are closed, her lashes dark against her cheek.

“A memory?”

“Yes,” Regina says softly, her voice sticking in her throat. She tucks her hands beneath Emma’s back. “A good memory. With all of us.”

Emma understands. It’s what children do when shaken by a nightmare _: Tell me a story._ Tell me it’s all going to be alright.

Luckily, Emma doesn’t have to think for long. They share a lot of good memories together. Even as difficult as her life becomes, through all the complicated curses and lost memories, a few good constants remain. There are days with the family, evenings all together, at the diner or at the beach, hugging and kissing through the difficulty of it all, seeking out moments of sweetness.

“Okay,” Emma says, and clears the rough patch out of her voice. “But I can’t tell you when –”

“Yes, yes,” Regina murmurs, “I know.”

“Okay,” Emma smooths her hands down along the furrow of Regina’s back, holding her closer. “Alright. Well, close your eyes, then.”

Regina arcs an eyebrow. “Close my eyes?”

“Yeah, you know, so you can picture it better.” Emma says, then with a little laugh, adds. “And you’re making me nervous, staring at me like that.”

Regina rolls her eyes, but to her surprise she closes her eyes and resettles her cheek against Emma’s chest.

“Okay,” Emma smiles softly, watching her. “So, it’s late September, and the days are still long enough to go blue at the end instead of straight to night, and though it should be getting pretty chilly, that whole week it has felt almost unreasonably warm so on Friday we both leave work early to go the beach with Henry.”

Regina draws in a deep breath and holds onto it for a moment too long. Emma can feel the strain of her lungs, but with her eyes closed, she is harder to read. Emma knows she is listening, though. She can feel the intensity of her attention in the close warm skin against her own. 

Emma slides her hands up and down Regina’s back. “Anyway, we all smell like sun lotion and ocean water because we went swimming that day. I packed things up, and was planning on going back to my place, but you invite me and my family back to yours because the evening was cooling off into something a little too beautiful to let end there.”

Regina makes a little grumbling sound which makes Emma laugh softly.

“You’re on better terms with the Charmings at this point, for Henry, but you still won’t let my mother anywhere near the kitchen, so we decide to have a barbecue. There are fireflies everywhere, and the sky is this rich deep purple. I try to grill the steaks, but my Dad was there critiquing my every move, so I get all huffy and leave him to do it instead so that I can go out and find you.”

Emma closes her eyes too, smiling at the memory. “I found you on the grass with our son. You’re both lying in the garden alcove, staring up at the flowers. I forget the name but they’re those bright blue flowers you grow, with little streaks of purple in the middle. They usually only stay bloomed for a little while, so you and Henry were laying there, watching as the bees jumped from flower to flower. You both looked so peaceful and happy, like you could stay there all night.”

For a moment it is completely quiet. Emma can feel Regina’s breathing against her chest, the slow, shaky rhythm of it, rising and falling in the space between Emma’s arms, growing gradually more teary. Emma smooths her hands up and down Regina’s back in a soothing gesture.

“I already knew I loved you then,” she says, smiling against the top of Regina’s head. “But I fell in love with you all over again in that moment.”

There’s another big shaky breath between her arms. Peeking down, Emma can the welling of tears in the corner of Regina’s closed eyes.

“Well,” Regina clears her throat quietly. Rising up onto her elbows, she repositions herself on Emma, her eyes dark and welling as she presses a soft kiss against Emma’s neck. “I guess I’ll just have to wait and see it for myself.” She breathes into Emma’s ear.

“Yeah.”

“One day,” Regina says, so quietly, a promise for herself. Emma shudders as Regina kisses her neck again, a little harder this time.

Sighing, Emma tilts her head back as Regina descends slowly, kissing her collarbone, over the swell of her breasts, down to the firm curve of her stomach. Her dark hair tickles against her skin as Regina presses a soft kiss to the waistband of Emma’s pajama shorts, gently hooking her fingers beneath the elastic band and pulling the fabric down.

Her newly exposed skin prickles beneath the cool air. Shuddering, Emma eases her hips off the mattress so that Regina can slide her shorts over her knees and drop them on the floor beside them.

Heart hammering loudly in her throat, Emma watches as Regina’s smile broadens into a smirk as she presses a warm kiss against her knee, her eyes dark and flashing. Emma groans softly, her fingers grasping the sheets helplessly as Regina slowly bends to kiss her other knee.

“Regina.” Emma whines feebly.

Regina chuckles, and descends slowly, dropping kisses down Emma’s thigh. Regina’s dark hair tickles against Emma’s thighs and hips as she kisses lower and lower and lower until Emma gasps and flutters her eyes to the ceiling.

***

Hours later, Emma jerks from a deep sleep as the light of her phone fills the room with a soft blue, vibrating loudly against the desk closest to Regina. The room wavers as Emma blinks and sits up, squinting through the dark at her buzzing phone. Regina stirs, and grumbles as Emma shifts further from the warmth of her bare back to reach tentatively into the darkness for her phone. 

“That better be an emergency,” Regina mutters menacingly, her voice a deep, scratchy growl. “Nobody should be calling you this late.”

“Sorry,” Emma drops a soft kiss against Regina’s neck before grabbing her phone at last and sliding it to her ear. “Hello?” she whispers.

“Hey,” August’s voice low and scratchy from disuse. “Meet me at 7am.”

Emma glances at the window where grey light is already filtering in through her blinds. She grimaces. “How soon is that?”

“Two hours.”

“Okay,” Emma sighs. “See you then.”

When she hangs up, the silence surrounds them again, far more dense than it had seemed before. Emma rubs her face, knowing that simply going back to sleep will be impossible. In two hours, she’ll be slushing through the icy morning towards some kind of end. Looking down, she watches Regina lay silently in the dark, her body soft though no longer relaxed, no longer sleeping.

“You’re leaving.” Regina says at last.

Emma lets out a soft breath. “Yeah. In like two hours.”

Regina nods, and resettles her cheek against her pillow. An arm slides out across the bed and hangs off the mattress.

“Very well,” she says at last. “I’m coming with you.”

“Regina.”

Regina turns a thin, derisive glare at Emma, her eyes dark and flat. “I’m coming with you.” She repeats, brooking no argument.

After a moment, Emma only nods. She wonders if it were still possible to return to their position they had before, for Emma to curve around Regina again and lay there, half-asleep and connected like two parts of one single thing. For at least a little while more.

A beat passes. Then, with a sigh, Regina rolls her stiff neck, and sits up. 

“I should go,” Regina says, and runs the tips of her fingers through her rumpled hair. “I have to be there when Henry wakes up.”

Emma nods silently, her heart going cold. The silence returns to them, seemingly unbreakable, though the birds are waking up outside and there is the constant rumble of moving water.

There’s a soft sigh, and then three cool fingers find Emma’s cheek and turn her back towards Regina.

“I’ll pick you up,” Regina whispers, and leans in for one more kiss. Their lips hum pleasantly, and Regina sighs reluctantly, rubbing her thumb briefly over Emma’s lips. “At 6:30. Alright?”

“Alright.” Emma exhales.

“Okay.”

Once Regina dresses and leaves, the bed suddenly feels too large and lonely to sleep in alone, so Emma gets up to take a shower instead, dressing for warmth.

By 6:28, Emma glances out the window to find Regina’s Mercedes already parked outside. Emma ambles down the stairs quickly and slides into the cool hush of Regina’s car, settling into a black leather seat.

“Here,” Regina promptly hands Emma a coffee and a bag of something warm and baked fresh from Granny’s. Emma blinks, and offers a charmed smile. After all they’d done the night before, it is still these little offerings makes Regina shy. 

Sipping her coffee, Emma sighs contently and settles against the warm seat. Outside her window, the early morning fog murkily streams by. On mornings like this, everything seems to glow faintly with blue, lights from cars and storefronts blinking indistinctly on either side of her like distant shorelines that are separated by what seems like an enormous ocean.

Emma watches it go, quietly. She sips her coffee, and listens to Regina’s radio, a low running thread of conversation between a few dry low voices who talk incessantly about the world.

By 6:40, Regina is parked in front of Maine street, grimacing at her wristwatch.

“He said 7:0o,” Emma tries.

Regina glares at the empty street corner where August said he’d meet them.

“You’re only on-time if you’re ten minutes early.”

Emma only nods, knowing that any sort of rebuttal right now would get her into a fight that would only get bitter and peevish fast.

Finally, she finds August’s slow amble down the street, and straightens, reaching back to open the passenger door. As August approaches, he ducks his head to squint uneasily through the black window of the Mercedes. Then, finding Emma at last, he grimaces and stiffly slides inside. 

“You brought the Queen,” August grumbles, and rolls his shoulders uncomfortably, reaching back stiffly for his seatbelt. “I thought you said you broke up with her.”

Regina’s glare swivels sharply from the review mirror to Emma, quelling even a nervous laugh from her lungs.

“Uh. Yeah, about that,” Emma musters a weak smile. “I ended up not doing that. And I also told her everything.”

August closes his eyes, but he doesn’t seem surprised.

“Course you did,” He sighs hugely and leans against the car door, swiping a heavy palm across his head. “Whatever. You know where the well is, your Majesty?”

“Of course,” Regina gripes, and puts her car in drive. “I created this town.” _You_ _idiot_ darts unspoken into the air between them.

The rest of the ride is thankfully silent from there. Regina ends up having to park her car along the side of the dirt road, the trees too thick and overgrown to be driven through. From there, the three of them trudge through hard reedy weeds and half-frozen grass. Regina doesn’t say a word as they traverse through the trees but beneath the silence her apprehension unsettles the air.

As they walk, a scatter of rain drops through the thick tree branches and brings with it loose pine needles and whatever comfort Emma has managed to shelter inside of her.

As they walk into the small clearing, Emma slows at the sight of the unimpressive stump of mossy stones. It had taken only a few seconds of dreaming to slip away into her past, so it only figures that her travel back to the present would be a terrifyingly long, black drop to which the continuation of her life is only partially guaranteed. Its fits with the pattern of her life so far, that every little wish of hers be met with brutal consequences so that she may finally learn a lesson about wanting.

All three of them come to stand around the circular, smooth-stoned tunnel where the air inside seems to change texture.

“So,” Regina clears her throat, and shifts uneasily, peering down the damp, mossy stones. “You didn’t bring a rope?”

Emma’s heart freezes. “A rope?” she glances at August. “I’ll need a rope?”

“Of course not.” August snaps, and glares at Regina. “I’ve tested it. There’s still enough magical properties in the water to fulfill your wish. As long as you touch it.”

“Of course,” Regina rolls her eyes. “But it’s still a long drop, _you idiot_.”

With that, August’s face turns uneasy, and Emma rests both of her palms against the well, the darkness staring back at her seeming suddenly profoundly deep and vertiginous. She may have toppled forward just then out of sheer weightlessness had Regina not put a hand on her back. A small, simple touch that grounds her to this reality, to this present. 

Regina smooths her hand up and down her back. “You’ll be okay,” she says, smoothing her worry away half-convincingly. When Emma looks up at her, she musters up a small smile. “The power of a wish has been able to do incredible things, even in the face of doubting Evil Queens.”

Emma half-smiles back. _Still_ , she thinks, _it’d be nice to have a rope._

“Alright.” August stands a little taller. He nods to Emma, his expression as rugged and clouded as a mountain. “We should do it soon. You know what to do, right?”

“Sure,” Emma nods, and looks down again at the deep dark hole she will be disappearing into. “I jump to my death and wish for home, right? Like Dorothy did.”

“She only clicked her shoes together, actually,” Regina murmurs.

“Course she did.” Emma half-laughs, then blows out a deep breath, staring down the darkness. “Shit, that’s deep. You sure we don’t have a rope?”

“I didn’t think she’d need it,” August grumbles, and shoots another glare at Regina, “This was supposed to be a swift process.”

Regina’s jaw clenches and her shoulders roll back, readying for a real fight.

“Alright, go easy you two,” Emma stares down at the deep black drop before her, her heart picking up against her ribs. “You can kill each other when I’m gone, since I’ll probably die from this drop, anyway.”

“You won’t die,” Regina rubs a soft soothing circle along her back. “You hero types are not so easy to kill as that.”

Snorting, Emma shakes her head and draws in a long, deep breath. Gripping the slippery stone wall, Emma slings one leg over the damp mossy rock and then the other. There, on the edge, the cool, brackish smell of the well fills her head, makes her dizzy. 

“Oh man,” Emma half-laughs. “I really don’t know if I can do this.”

Arms slide gently around her waist, and soon the warmth of Regina’s body is curling around her back, holding her close. Regina puts her chin against Emma’s shoulder, and stares down at the deep, empty space in front of them.

“It’s a long drop,” Regina whispers softly, “But don’t be frightened, darling. The magic below is powerful. It will do its job.”

Emma closes her eyes. “Okay.”

“Just make sure to drop down straight.” Regina musters a small smile before she turns to kiss Emma’s firmly on the cheek. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

Emma nods, and slowly, she slides off the wall, falling soundlessly into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed <3


	6. part six

She falls for a long, long time. Long enough to convince her that maybe she’d hit the water already. Maybe the water had simply been soft and dark enough that she hadn’t separated its contact from the sensation of falling. It had simply swallowed her whole, without a splash or ripple.

Then, of course, she hits water.

The contact comes so fast it breaks around her and swallows her whole before she can scream, vibrating within her body at such a higher-level frequency, she feels atomic, made of a million tiny little pieces that are capable of being separated.

The water drags her down deeper, tunneling her further from the surface. She looks around frantically, but all around her there is only darkness.

Frantically, she closes her eyes _. Home_ , she wishes with all her might. _Please let me go home._

Gradually, beneath her closed eyelids, she can see the water brightening. When she opens her eyes, the water is a lighter color grey, full of granular light.

And around her, she can see moments of her life. Her life is flowing past her as she sinks, streaming _through_ her.

She notices little changes. But surprisingly, nothing huge seems to have changed.

Just little things. So small, in fact, Emma has a hard time distinguishing the changes from her first life.

Like Regina’s shaking hands when she passes over the apple turnover. She can’t recall if Regina’s hands had shook the first time, but she definitely remembers the way Regina had folded over Henry’s bed to grip his little foot as if it were the single tether that keeps her in this world. The sound of her crying still strikes through Emma just as powerfully as it had the first time.

The water brightens and carries the moment upwards again as Emma continues to sink, memories passing by her quick as fish.

There is the way Regina regards her silently when Emma gets between her and an angry mob – a dark, silent look that follows Emma everywhere in those small hours she has before she pushes Regina out of the way of a wraith and disappears into a different world. Emma thinks this had happened the first time around too, though she hadn’t understood its significance then.

When Emma comes back from the Enchanted Forest, Regina is silky and soft towards her. She smiles when Emma enters a room, and gentles her insults with affectionate laughter, even let’s slip a few jokes between them, which warms the flutter in Emma’s stomach a little too brightly to ignore.

The first time around, Emma had been able to convincingly disguise any feelings she had about Regina into only an empathetic shadow of what her son might feel, but when she finds that Regina is the culprit for Archie’s murder, the loss that wells over her heart is too powerful to claim as only Henry’s, and it makes her sharp and furious in the days that follow, matching only Regina’s fury.

She doesn’t think it had gone like that the first time, at least.

In all the fighting that comes later, Regina looks at her with sharp, distinct betrayal, as if Emma had proven herself to be a liar or a cheat or something else equally slimy and despicable. Those looks don’t differ in any way from the first timeline, but Emma feels them sharper this time. Maybe it is because Henry keeps sharing memories about his Mom that makes her heart bunch up in her chest like a child about to cry. Or maybe it’s because Henry frequently reminds her that one day she and his Mom will love each other like they are supposed to.

Regardless of the reason, those looks cut like a knife and leave a bleeding softness inside of Emma. When the truth finally comes out, Emma cries in a way she never allowed herself to before, her failure to protect Regina weighing on her heart like a hand. _You didn’t protect her when she needed you to._

When Cora and Regina ambush them in Gold’s office, Emma manages to slip a knife against Regina’s throat as leverage strong enough to make even Cora hesitate. As Cora’s cold eyes analyze the situation, plainly weighing the loss of her daughter against its potential benefits, the bleeding softness in Emma moves her to press against Regina’s dark hair with a soft whisper: _Come back to us. Things will be different._ Regina shivers and lets out a small metallic noise like a machine breaking down, forgetting how to work. When Cora finally decides to stand down, Regina hesitates all of a single moment before Cora’s eyes pierce through her and compel her forward again as if she’d been jerked forward by a chain.

All these differences add up to a change that Emma recognizes immediately. It happens soon after Cora dies.

While her and Henry were walking up to her parents’ house, a whirl of purple magic wraps around them both and lands them just outside Regina’s vault. Before Emma could do anything more than shout, Regina had quickly gagged and handcuffed her.

“I don’t care what your parents do, I’m taking you both,” Regina had snarled into her ear.

With Regina’s body so warm and close to her own, Emma freezes like a deer. She can do nothing but watch as Regina takes a magic bean out of her purse and drops it in the soft forest floor beside them.

When the portal opens, however, Henry begins to cry, and the sound of his crying cuts through Regina. Emma sees it happen. She had been barreling towards a new destination as single-mindedly as a train, but at the sound of her son crying, she had stuttered and turned to water.

The portal had closed just as quickly as it had closed. With a flick of Regina’s wrist, they were returned to Snow and Charmings’ apartment in a plume of purple smoke.

When the purple magic clears, Henry had looked up at her with big teary eyes that had made Emma long for Regina all over again, in the way she scarcely allowed herself to feel before. In that moment, she wanted Regina to stand beside her so that they may comfort their son together. She wanted Regina to be there for every difficult moment, to help her navigate every impossible decision.

Emma had seriously considered Regina’s plot, then. It made a sort of sense. They could almost do it. They could go to another realm, just the three of them and try to make it work somewhere where no one would know them. A place with less history, maybe; a place where they might be seen to strangers as only two mothers and a kid.

Then she finds out about the trigger, and her hope flutters away.

Emma doesn’t allow herself to hope for their family again until she is laying out half-asleep beneath a mosquito infested sky in Neverland and wakes with a start to find Regina crawling into her sleeping bag. She had been drifting from one confusing dream to the next, and so when Regina’s trembling body slips along her own, it seems like only a continuation of a dream she has been having all night. But as Regina presses her head beneath Emma’s chin, trembling wordlessly in her arms, too fearful, too knowing to ask for comfort but wanting it anyway, the dreaming part of Emma jerks up, fully alert. After a moment of stunned disbelief, Emma wraps her arms around Regina and holds her close through all her tremors and fears. She doesn’t ask her questions, doesn’t wonder why aloud why Regina would need her, she only strokes Regina’s hair until the trembling stops, whispering quiet meaningless comforts, _it’ll be okay_ , _everything will be alright_ , until her breathing calms, and they are both able to sleep.

Their lives play out a familiar story in Neverland. Regina wavers back and forth between friendly and dangerous, often becoming inconsolably bitter whenever Neal or Hook is near Emma. Which, to Emma’s surprise, isn’t so different as before.

Her mother also has shifted slightly. She had watched Regina warily before, and now she seems to watch Regina knowingly, as if something had finally started to make sense. Sometimes when watching them, her mother will get this faraway look in her eyes as if she were on a couch with Emma again, watching another love story unfold with varying levels of success.

When Peter Pan casts his curse, Regina looks just as devastated as she had the first time she sent Emma and Henry over the town line. Emma watches through the rearview mirror all the way over the town line, until she can’t remember why she’s crying anymore.

Her cursed life is just as happy as before, just as stable. The real differences occur when they come back.

Regina sticks close to Emma, even when shadowed with Robin, and her dark, watchful eyes confuse her every moment she is with Hook. Like a confused, heart-sick puppy, she finds herself following Regina everywhere, just to understand why her heart flutters at every small touch, at every glance, at every soft little laugh, and then it just _clicks_ one day, incidentally as she watches an argument unfold between Regina and Hook. Regina had narrowed her eyes in that scary intimidating way of hers and suddenly the way her heart _squeezes_ for Regina more the man she is seeing, kissing, struggling to feel things with all of a sudden makes sense. The light goes off, and the room is still locked.

Regina’s loathing for Hook seems to be more apparent, which hardly changes anything, but it does seem to interfere with Hook in some way. Though he remains as doggedly persistent as before, he is sure to never to make another lewd joke or come-on in Regina’s presence again for fear of being flung across the room. Again.

When it is revealed that Zelena will be making a time portal, Regina looks at Emma with a kind of frantic hope that prickles in Emma’s mind all night. When Emma returns with Marian, Regina’s eyes flash with a betrayal that is far more difficult to soothe.

 _“You went to the Enchanted Forest_ ,” Regina accuses, again and again, instead of “ _You brought back Marian,”_ and though Emma still has no idea how to mend these wounds than she had with the old ones, she still makes that quiet frantic confession in the vault one night. Regina's eyes go liquid dark just as they'd gone before, the same warm, endless dark eyes that fills Emma's mind at night. 

Regina's relationship with Robin never quiet recovers after Marian. In her own timeline, Regina’s relationship with him had already been sporadic, but in this version it stutters erratically like a skipping record player until at last Regina lets him go. Robin leaves with Marian not long after to live in the Enchanted Forest again.

Two nights after he leaves, Emma comes by with a bottle of whiskey and an orange to mix with the bitters and maraschino cherries Regina keeps in her drink cabinet.

After two very strong drinks, she finally has the courage to ask Regina why she let Robin go.

Regina laughs lowly around her drink and looks at Emma with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

“Do you want the reason I told Henry or the one I told Snow?” she says

“Whichever one is the truth.”

“Both are,” Regina runs her finger along the rim of her drink. “I told Henry that I didn’t love Robin the way I wanted to love a person in this world. I was tired of trying to love someone in a way that felt only half of what I am capable of.”

Emma’s chest flutters brightly.

“And the other reason?” she asks after another strong gulp of liquid courage.

“The sex nearly bored me to death.” Emma nearly spits out her drink, and Regina laughs. The low, rich sound of it warms the skin all the way up Emma’s back to the tips of her ears. “I know I’ve done a lot of horrible things in this world, but I deserve better sex than _that_.”

As Emma struggles to keep the whiskey in her mouth, Regina laughs at her again.

Soon after Regina begins to search for the Author again, though her reasoning is a little less clear, having no obvious loss to propel her. After some pushing, Regina says at last that she wants to know whether she’s lost her chance for her happy ending. Whether there is still one out there for her.

When Emma promises to help her find one, Regina’s eyes shine brightly like she knows she will.

There is more affection between them. Regina more readily slides her fingers through Emma's hair. Kissing on the cheek becomes a habitual part of their goodbyes when they know they won't see each other for more than a few days. Then, once, after one too many glasses of wine, Regina pulls Emma into one of those long sweet goodbye hugs and trails a few slow, lingering kisses along her neck. The kisses are soft and warm, almost friendly, but the contact sends a bolt of electricity through Emma’s body, and rings throughout her skin for days afterwards.

Not long after the Queens of Darkness come to town, there is that warm day in September at the beach. They all come back to Regina’s place drowsy and happy from the sun. David laughs around a beer bottle and finally teases Emma away from the grill, and there she finds Regina and Henry on their backs in the garden alcove with the blue chiffon flowers fluttering brightly against the evening sky.

When Regina looks up to find Emma, her eyes shine with a dark, astonished light like she’s just realized she’s seen this movie before. She stretches out her hand, and calls to Emma in a sweet, sleepy voice: _Join us, darling._ And Emma does. She lays down in the soft grass beside Regina, close enough to breathe in the sunny smell of her hair and the salt smell of her body, close enough to feel the warmth of her body press against her own, side-by-side so that they are arm to arm and thigh to thigh. Emma stares up at the bluing evening above them and at the flowers that blow white against the lattice, at the bees and leaves, and feels inside the empty cavity of her chest the reckless hammering of her heart, hammering for everything that a heart could possibly want.

It seems only weeks later, Emma lunges into a black vortex to save Regina. Afterwards, Regina looks at Emma differently, with a slightly stunned, disarmed look, the very same look she had on her face when Emma picked up the dagger and rushed into the darkness, as if she were somehow still standing inside that swirling black vortex watching those fleeting seconds play out again and again in front of her eyes. Regina stays close to Emma, remains just as fierce and protective as she had before. She follows Emma from Camelot, to Hell, and back again, through all the visions of her death. That stunned look never quiet leaves Regina’s eyes, though they soften with sadness and grow distant. She begins to watch Emma the way one might watch a doomed character in a movie.

When Regina hunts Emma across the wish-verse, she doesn’t return with a wish-verse Robin, though she seems just as soft and sad and distant with her after everything is resolved, just as she had before. The weeks that follow that are long, and lonely, and Emma spends most days wishing for her life would change; wishing for a life where she can stand in the warm kitchen light with Regina and watch her laugh with a tortoise clip in her hair and her sleeves rolled back and her face bright for more than a single evening.

Then, the water brightens around her. Her body feels light as the water swirls around her, moving faster and faster until Emma can see through the water the vague shape of an office, her clean, haphazardly organized desk, and the broad maple-paneled walls.

Feeling dizzy, Emma closes her eyes. Her ears pop, and her head spins. She stays perfectly still, holding her breath as the reality outside her skull seems to settle along a grid of perfectly measured lines.

For a moment, Emma only sits there breathing. Her body still hums faintly from the last six years rushing through her at top speed. Having watched her life all over again, she thinks she can make a little more sense of it this time. It tingles along her spine, settles her whole body with resolve.

Outside, a car passes by. A basketball hits wet cement with a dull, repetitive _thwack_ as kids from the high school wander out for lunch.

Finally, Emma opens her eyes.

The room settles around her, watery at first, and then more certainly. The warm, cloudy light slants across her back and livens the dark oak-tone of her desk.

Beside her computer, her old wrist-watch ticks, keeping time. Her father’s gift.

She blinks down at it. Somehow, despite all of what her rash heart had stupidly wanted, she’d slipped straight back into the same loop of her life in the same predictable manner as a needle in thread. Save for a few minor changes, her life is almost completely the same.

A short bell rings.

“Swan?”

Emma blinks, and looks up.

Hook is walking across the station, walking towards her office door with that faint smirk of his, a bag in hand, the brown paper already creasing slightly with greasy take-out.

“Hey,” Hook leans heavily against the door fame. “You forgot to text me about lunch, so I just got you whatever I thought you might like.”

He jiggles the bag lightly, and though his tone is smiling and breezy, an edge of accusation runs sharply beneath. 

“Hook,” Emma almost laughs at the familiarity of it. She smiles vaguely, and stands, her back blooming strong and firm with resolve. “You know what, I’m glad you’re here. We need to talk.”

***

Emma stops by her mother’s apartment to drop off her box of things that she took from the house she shared with Hook. The fact that the only things that mattered to her in that house could fit in a box the size of her arms is bitterly gratifying. A petty sort of victory, like finding rats in the basement after scourging through a shitty box-of-an apartment in Boston for evidence of a pest that has slowly mangled every small meager human satisfaction by demolishing the food, souring the water, and tunneling through already weak plaster-thin walls. Then, suddenly, a light switches on and the swarm of rats are revealed and every creeping doubt and insecurity you ever had is assuredly well founded.

Knocking her car door closed with an elbow, Emma weighs her box of things against her hip as she struggles to find her mother’s apartment key in one of her pockets. It takes her long enough that she decides to lean the box against a windowsill along the stairwell so that she can pat down all her pockets and find it at last in her inside jacket pocket.

She lets out a small breath of relief (it could have been the pocket with the hole) and walks up the rest of the stairs only to find the door already open and Snow waiting for her.

“Emma,” Snow beams when Emma ambles up the last of the steps. The look of her face, so warm and excited to see her, floods Emma’s chest with a prickling love – did she do something to change her relationship with her mother? Or had her mother always been happy to see her, and she just never noticed – “Thank _god_ you’re here. Can you _please_ baby sit your little brother for a little bit?”

Emma’s excitement slowly deflates, and with a grimace, she slows.

“Um. Well, actually –”

“Please,” Snow begs, “I have to step out. Your father is already at the deli for lunch, and I just need a little bit alone time with him, or I might lose it on your poor little brother.”

Snow laughs lightly, but there is exhaustion gleaming in her eyes. Between them, strung taught, are the familial ties that ring with certain expectation whenever plucked. Though Emma had never experienced a family in the first twenty eight years of her life, she’s picked up the rules fairly quickly. The mother’s exhaustion is the oldest daughter’s responsibility.

“Well,” Emma wrinkles her mouth, feeling already the bitter twist of obligation in her gut. It’d been the same for six years. “The thing is, I was on my way to –”

“One hour,” Snow pleads. “Please.”

With a small fretful hum, Emma glances at her wristwatch. It’s only 1pm. She has at least two and a half hours before Regina leaves to go shopping for their Friday night dinner. She has time.

Shifting, the box of her old life is beginning to feel heavy in her arms, and though Emma would really like nothing more than to just set it down, unpack some and donate the rest so she can catch Regina at the office before she leaves, her mother’s eyes are bleary with exhaustion and scarily close to tears. It punctures straight through her resolve.

“Alright,” Emma allows softly.

“Oh thank you honey!” Snow cheers, and giddily rubs Emma’s arms before she quickly hands her a list of Baby-Brother Responsibilities, grabs her coat, and nearly runs out the door before Emma can change her mind.

Emma has to yell down the stairs after her mother, “But _only_ one hour!”

But her mother is already gone. She sighs and sets her box down on the floor. Well. She’ll get better at this. She’s got time.

Baby-Brother is actually not a baby anymore. He’s three, and old enough now to coming running at the sound of her voice, and despite the strangled little-kid resentment in Emma’s hurting heart, she can’t help but laugh and wrap her arms around the kid smushed into her stomach.

“Em-Mpha!” Neal cries muffled into her stomach.

“Hey buddy,” Emma laughs and rubs his little back.

Neal has their mother’s face, more so than Emma can ever see in her own, which she thinks is aided by the fact that he is probably the happiest kid she’s ever met. He has a happiness that soars out of him like something wild, something he can only barely contain, which is a quality he shares with their mother.

Neal rubs his small face against her stomach, and Emma’s heart melts all over again. She hefts him up into her arms.

“Come on, buddy,” Emma drops a teary kiss against his thickening hair, “Let’s go play a game. Yeah?”

Later, after her and Neal have run themselves tired, Emma allows herself to plop on the couch and turn on the TV to divert at least some of her little brother’s attention from her.

When Neal is properly transfixed, and she can cross off the _Feed him a healthy snack_ off the list with a few freshly cut apples and peanut butter, she texts Regina.

_[1:45] You still at the office?_

Emma plops her phone down since the normal waiting period for a reply when Regina is at work could be twenty to thirty minutes, but to her surprise her phone buzzes immediately.

[1:45] _Yes, darling_

A smile curls up on Emma’s face.

That is another small difference about this timeline. About two years ago, Regina got into the habit of calling her darling. It started one night after one too many glasses of wine, Emma had nuzzled into Regina’s side and had felt so sleepy and warm she had asked whether she could stay over. Regina had gently combed her fingers through Emma’s hair, and whispered, _Of course darling. You’re welcome to stay anytime._

It started that night, and simply never stopped. With Regina and Henry, Emma never wonders whether the love there is real.

_[1:50] I was thinking of swinging by._

A beat. Her phone buzzes again quickly _._

_[1:50] Please do. Drinks?_

_[1:50] Sure_

_[1:50] Looking forward to it <3_

Emma bites her lip, her heart squirming. Then she slips off the couch, glancing one more time at her little brother.

As she mounts the stairs to take a shower, she points at him, “Don’t move an inch, you little bugger. I’ll be right back.”

Neal giggles, and takes another bite of his apple.

By the time Emma has finished her shower and dressed into her favorite pair of jeans and jacket, it is 2pm and her mother is nowhere in sight. Not even a text.

Sighing, Emma towels off her hair as she descends the stairs.

“Hey!” she calls, finding Neal watching his toons in a chair rather than the couch, “Didn’t I say not to move? Not even an inch, I said!”

When Neal sticks out his tongue, she starts after him. With a screech of laughter, he goes running, his little feet sliding around linoleum as Emma’s laughter chases his.

It is 2:40pm by the time Snow comes back. Neal is conked out on the couch, wiped out from all the running. When asleep, the kid looks almost angelic, no more deserving of ire as a puppy or some other sweet helpless thing.

Their mother on the hand.

“Hi, sweetie,” Snow enters with a relieved sigh. “Thanks so much for watching him. It was so nice to just have a lunch with your father again.”

“Sure,” Emma says, and feels her heart batter against her ribs at the thought of saying anything more.

The old her wouldn’t have said anything else. The old her would have just smiled and tried to be grateful for what she had. 

Snow crinkles her eyes as if to say _Aren’t I lucky_? And Emma’s heart clenches painfully at the immediate assurance that she’s loved. That she’s done good. Her place in her family once more assured, until the next time.

Had Emma not watched her own life flash before her eyes just that morning, she might not have remembered just how easily all these little gestures had piled up, made her give, and give, and give, until she had nothing else but the act of giving; until all the other parts of her that wasn’t immediately _giving_ or _caring_ or _sweet_ became unwelcome, unwanted, characteristics. As dismissible as a tantrum from a balky petulant child.

Everyone likes a sweet girl, but they weren’t quite so crazy about the nervous one. Nobody signs up for a girl who shuts down, broods over her anger until the smallest thing boils her over. Nobody wants the wreck, the girl with hard-eyes, who learned to break things instead of crying. Some of them don’t, anyway.

It started out so small at first. Emma had thought that’s just what a family is for. You give yourself over to them. You surrender your needs to theirs. What you give is returned with love, and the more you give…

And just like that, she had slipped away. She gave up whatever she could just for a little more love, a little more assurance. For a little crinkly eyed smile from her mother that always seems to say _Aren’t I lucky_?

“You said you’d be back in an hour, though.” Emma says.

Snow blinks. For a moment, her face is completely blank with surprise. Then, innocently, she looks at her wristwatch.

“Oh, look at that,” Snow rolls her eyes at herself. _Silly Mommy. Forgot to look at the clock! So clumsy._ “I’m way off. I’m sorry sweetie.”

Then, with a conciliatory pat on the arm, Snow walks past her to peek on her baby boy. Her smile turns warm and golden like crisp apple pie.

Emma’s heart shrivels inside.

“Was he good?” Snow asks, still looking at her baby.

“Yeah, he’s perfect,” Emma can feel the bitterness on the back of her throat like bile, like something she wishes she could cough up. She shakes her head. “You didn’t even text.”

Her mother’s brow folds momentarily, having already forgotten Emma’s ire. Emma laughs a little, unable to help it, which smooths out Snow’s forehead quick.

“Well, sure. But honey,” Snow begins, her voice a little more tense. “It was just lunch.”

“Yeah.” Emma nods, and shoves her hands into her jean pockets. “It’s always just lunch. Or dinner. Or a weekend away. Or you’re out at the park with the other new Moms, and you want me to bring you the baby bag full of baby things for your new baby boy.”

Her voice sharpens unexpectedly at the end and leaves the air crackling with tension. 

Snow’s eyes narrow. She draws herself straight.

“Emma,” her mother steels her voice. ‘I’m sorry if you feel like I’m taking advantage of you, _but_ –”

“Yeah,” Emma cuts in quickly, before that _but_ can stop her. “I _am_ feeling a little taken advantage of, actually. A _lot_.”

“Emma, honestly, I have no idea where this is even coming from –”

“Yeah, I bet you don’t. How could you know? You never ask. You never want to know –”

“ _Excuse me_?”

“You just want me to babysit your baby, and then hope that I go home and not do anything that will fuel any embarrassing gossip for you to navigate on Saturday breakfast brunch with all the other princesses!”

“Emma!” Snow gapes.

But Emma is lost in it now. She can’t reel it in.

“Do you even _want_ me?”

The air stills. Snow puts a hand on the top of the couch as if to stabilize her. Her eyes are fiery and defensive, but already Emma can see the incipient shine of tears.

Looking into those eyes, for a single moment, Emma actually feels like her daughter. It is such a rare feeling, Emma’s breath hitches. She’d become accustomed to calling Snow _Mom_ and David _Dad_ , but she’d had a whole life without them, and their sudden appearance in her late twenties only seemed to complicate whatever friendship they might have had together. But right now, Emma feels like a _teenager_ about to run out after an argument with her parents, but not from some cool, uncaring stranger, from her _mother_. A mother who cares, who _wants_ her to stay despite how blindingly oblivious she seems at times.

Tears well up in Emma’s eyes. She can feel her breathing change in the quiet air between them, becoming soft ragged peeps and shuddering exhales.

“ _I_ want to be your daughter,” Emma tries not to cry, but her voice gives out half-way, and then her face. “I want to _feel_ like your daughter, but I’m too busy being your friend, your counselor, and your kid’s babysitter to be anything to you.”

Snow wobbles. The air opens up. Full of anger and tension – a whole lifetime between them.

“I never meant…” Snow begins and swallows. “I never meant to make you feel like that, honey.”

“We don’t do anything together anymore, _Mom_.” For once, the title slips out easily, like it never has before. “I mean, at least during the curse we’d watch movies together and talk. But now, I feel like you barely treat me like you would a friend!”

“I…” Snow starts, and then her mouth folds. She turns to water, just like Regina, with the sound of her children crying. “Oh, baby.”

Shaking her head, Snow crosses the space between them to pull Emma into a tight hug, one of her _mothering_ hugs that she gives so easily to Ruby and Neal and even Regina. Closing her eyes, Emma succumbs to it.

“You’re right,” Snow sighs softly, and rubs her back. “You’re completely right. I’m so sorry.”

Her fingers snag through Emma’s hair in their readiness to comb through everything. Emma winces with the pain but doesn’t dare pull back. Snow might not have everything figured out, but sometimes she surprises Emma with how fast she learns.

“I love you so much sweetheart,” Snow sighs raggedly, and squeezes her again. “I’m sorry I haven’t been showing that. I don’t always know how – it’s just so much harder with you –” she winces. “Not because of _you_ but—”

“I know,” Emma smiles weakly, “It’s alright. I’m your age.”

“But you’re still my baby,” Snow cries. “I’ve never forgotten that – I just – I can’t stand the pain you’ve gone through, and I can’t stand that you’ve done it without me. I’ve never gotten over it, I didn’t know how – so I just locked it up and pretended like it didn’t matter. And now _you_ —” Snow’s breath leaves her as a strangled cry.

Emma holds Snow tighter. Though her mother’s trembling frightened her on a child-level that she’s only beginning to understand, she can think of nothing else to do but hold tight through her terror, soothing Snow’s back until the crying stops, until the trembling calms and their breathing slows.

When Snow pulls back, she roughly wipes her cheeks with a palm and laughs. It’s a soft, teary sound, but full and lovely.

Emma smiles hesitantly and feels her eyes well and close when Snow puts a tentative hand on her cheek.

“Let’s watch a movie together sometime,” Snow says, and smiles tearfully. “Okay?”

Emma nods, and laughs lowly at how much of a wreck she is. But the sound of laughter lightens the air between them, like after a storm when the sky clears at last of rain, and the world is damp and cold and the air is swept clear with wind, and everything suddenly feels new and bright and clean.

Snow deftly wipes another tear away and tilts her head. She smiles, her eyes crinkling fondly.

“You look good, sweetheart,” Snow says, and her brow folds with surprise. “Did you style your hair?”

Emma’s cheeks prickle faintly with warmth. It had been a quick impulse, knowing how much Regina liked to drag her fingers through her hair and slowly untangle all the curls…

“Uh yeah,” she coughs. “I was going to go see Regina.”

“Oh, right,” Snow smiles. “Your Friday dinners.”

“Yeah, that too. But I was actually going to see her at her office, and maybe have a drink with her before.”

“Oh…” Snow blinks, “Well, that sounds fun. But if you’re going to see her this evening, why-“

“I just have something I’d like to tell her.”

Maybe it’s the hopeful way Emma says it, or the soft nervous way she tilts her head to the side, but Snow’s eyes flare with sudden understanding.

Then, Snow’s eyes do their trick. Her mother has a quick way to hide emotion on her face, a trick Mary Margaret never learned. The emotion flashes so quick, it is hard to remember whether the flash initially looked like surprise or anger or hope. But the way Snow’s smile softens around the corners, Emma likes to think maybe it is hope. 

“Oh,” Snow says softly, and nods. Her thumbs swipe along Emma’s cheek once more before they drop from her face, and fold together in front of her. “I’m…That’s great. I’m glad.”

Another beat passes.

“Maybe you’d like to touch up on your mascara, though,” Snow sneakily smiles. “The eyeliner too.”

Caught, Emma groans softly. “Mom...”

“And wear your red jacket.”

“She _hates_ my red jacket.”

“No, she _teases_ you about your red jacket,” Snow’s eyes teem with warmth. “That’s how I know she likes it.”

Emma rubs an embarrassed palm across her eyes, and glances sidelong at her Mom’s rounded, happy smile. There is a quiet knowing look there that began around Neverland, and, if she thinks about it long enough, had not started in this timeline. It has been present all along, always there, just out of the corner of her eye. Emma just needed to watch the last six years of her life all over again to see it. 

“Whatever.” Emma groans, but steps half a step closer to the stairwell smiling, because her Mom is looking at her in this quiet, tender way like she knows all about the heart in her chest; how it’s not all that walled up after all; knows who it is set on.

What the hell, Emma thinks. She can at least make sure she doesn’t look like she’s been crying. She’s got time

***

It’s near 3:15 by the time Emma ambles up the stairs to the Mayor’s office. The door is open for her already and Emma finds herself pausing in the doorway. The afternoon light is at full-tilt, beautiful as ever as it leans in through Regina’s windows to splash across the glass mirrors and leather couches, making everything look warm and bright. The glass vase beside Regina sparkles, producing a ray of polychrome that flickers briefly across Regina’s face before she looks up to find Emma there.

Straightening in her chair, Regina smiles immediately.

“Emma,” Her eyes crinkle, and she sets down her pen. “I’m so glad you made it.” 

“Yeah, sorry,” Emma grins, and leans against the door like a boneless idiot. “Snow wanted me to babysit.”

“And deprived me of a drink,” Regina shakes her head as if that were the very paradigm of injustice in this world and walks towards her private little drink cabinet. “Cider?” she asks.

“Yeah, please.”

Wandering in further, Emma watches as Regina swiftly uncorks the glass decanter and pours, feeling her palms begin to sweat. She’d imagined the scene at least a hundred times, had imagined herself walking confidently across the room to accept her drink, and stand there close to Regina to preserve some of the tenderness.

But now that she’s here, the moment dips and blurs in her head. Shouldn’t she be sitting? But if she sits at her usual chair, Regina would settle behind her desk, which is also where she sits when she’s giving Emma a scolding. So that can’t work.

Emma glances at the couch and subtly wipes her palms on the back of her jeans. If she sits on the couch, Regina would sit with her. But the thought of Regina being so close to her makes her heart pound faster. What if she trips over herself, or stumbles? What if she gets so tongue-tied and embarrassed she gives up, and never tells Regina anything?

No. Emma squares her shoulders. She can do this.

“You styled your hair,” Regina observes quietly. She extends a decently poured glass toward Emma.

Emma accepts dumbly. “I did.” She breathes.

“I haven’t seen you curl it in a while.” Regina smiles a little wistfully. “It looks nice.”

Emma’s heart swells. Before she can think about where to sit, Regina returns to her desk and sits back down in her chair.

“Sorry, darling,” Regina says, and sets her drink down on a coaster beside the keyboard. “I promise I’ll be done soon. Are you coming to the store with me?”

Drawing in a big breath, Emma sits down on her normal chair.

“Yeah.” Emma clears her throat, and nods. “Yeah, I’d love that.”

Regina smiles without looking up. “Good. I was hoping I could drag you along.”

Emma bites her tongue to keep herself from saying something stupid like, ‘ _You can drag me anywhere_.’ She may have botched the opening, but she’s not going to spoil her romantic moment with flustered, nervous jokes.

Emma sips her drink, and watches quietly as Regina frowns at her screen, her lips pursing in that cute, irritated way of hers.

“How’s your day?” Emma smiles.

Regina’s mouth flattens. “Fine,” she says, but her fingers flex over the keyboard.

Usually, by the end of the day Regina has a well-defined list on what the towns people had done to her to, as Regina puts it, “get back at her for giving them a decent life in a picturesque town in Maine”. Normally, it began with some minor little distraction that would inevitably cause a disaster, such as an inconsequential meeting going far too long with the usual loud, unnecessary caveats, which would ultimately result in any number of delays that would force her to shelve away previously scheduled meetings that would fill her inbox with passive aggressive emails and give her a nasty looking schedule the next day.

When Regina glances up at her, Emma gives her a knowing look over the top of her drink, and with a sigh Regina lets her shoulders melt against the back of her chair.

“Well, other than the hour I spent looking for another curse, just to get these people out of my hair so I can finish my paperwork, it was fine,” Regina laughs softly.

"Any results?"

"Nothing really stood out," Regina smiles over her drink, seeming delighted at how Emma can read her. “How about you?” she asks.

Emma draws in another big breath, and smiles.

“Good,” Emma bites her lip at how _happy_ she sounds. “Actually _really_ good.”

Regina blinks with surprise at the sudden exuberance, then she stiffens, her face fluttering with fear and dismay. Her eyes drop quickly to scan Emma’s left hand, then quickly all over Emma’s body as if she could be wearing a wedding ring around her neck.

“Oh?” Regina says and sips her drink, even-toned, braced for impact. “Why?”

Emma grins. The truth wells up inside of her, bright and round and promising.

“I broke up with Hook.”

Regina coughs on her drink. She’d only just touched the glass to her lips before she had to forcefully set it down again to cover her coughing with a hand. Her eyes grow watery as she tries to breathe through the sudden confusion in her throat. 

“Sorry—” Regina coughs and waves an apologetic hand. When she can breathe, she roughly clears her throat. “Sorry, one more time, dear. I must have – I thought you said –” she shakes her head. “You did what?”

“I broke up with Hook.” Emma repeats definitely.

Regina swallows thickly, and with a few of her fingers still lifted partially covering her mouth, she looks like the very depiction of surprise.

A beat of silence passes.

Then, almost compulsively, Regina lets out a helpless-sounding laugh.

“Really?” Regina asks, and though her tone is washed warm with her laughter, she still sounds stripped of breath. “You did?” 

“Yes.” Emma smiles and scoots her chair a little closer. “I did.”

Regina laughs again, a little brighter this time. Then, slowly, reconciling her expression, she weighs her elbows against the desk with a kind of seriousness that undercuts her wonder. It is as if her most dearly-held wish has just come true before her very eyes but being a cynic about all good things in this world, she must analyze it carefully before she can allow it into the realm of possibility.

“Why?” Regina asks, her voice still soft, but guarded. “It seemed to everyone that you loved him.”

Emma nods, and rubs her palms together. She knows that most others must see her relationship like they do any other. Even with its ugly, complicated parts, there would be few willing to peel back the dream to look beyond the surface. But for so long, she had felt her relationship become strange to her. It floated around her like a farce, tied to her heart as a mimic of something real, like a floating paper-hawk to keep out nuisances. 

When she glances back at Regina, she finds those deep, endless eyes watching her again. Those eyes that seem to go forever.

“Did you think I loved him?” Emma asks.

Regina takes a moment to react, wanting to appear unsurprised, unmoved. But at last, the line between her eyebrows quivers, and feeling begins to thaw her again.

“I was never sure,” Regina says, at last. The corner of her mouth hikes up. “Sometimes I was sure that you didn’t. Other times, I thought it was just my wishful thinking.”

Nodding, Emma links her fingers together and hangs them between her knees. She smiles a little sheepishly.

“I know it sounds a little cold, to say this after all this time,” Emma lets out a rough little laugh and meets Regina’s eyes. “But I knew I didn’t love him pretty early on. And I knew I never would.”

Regina swallows thickly. A quiet, indistinct sound rumbles in her chest, mingled somewhere between laugh and a cry. 

“Really?” Regina repeats almost voicelessly. “Never?”

When Emma nods, Regina’s chest quivers, and she draws her hands firmly around her drink as if to stabilize herself again. As her thumbnail draws sharp, quick circles along the glass, Emma thinks, this is it. This is the time.

Scooting closer, Emma rests a hand across the dark oak-tone of Regina’s desk, close to Regina’s wrist, though she doesn’t touch her yet. She watches as Regina’s gaze slowly dips longingly towards her fingers then up again.

Emma takes a deep breath, “I’ve been …well I’ve been real miserable. I’ve known for a while that I shouldn’t have been with him, but I just – I kept holding onto him. First because I didn’t think I really had another option, and then because it seemed like everyone else just _expected_ me to, and then because I’d just put so much work into it, it seemed more selfish to let him go than to be happy.”

Regina watches her with shining, dark eyes. The light behind her has turned into a pink-gold color, the afternoon sliding into the shimmering brightness of early evening.

“I got to a point where I thought I was stuck,” Emma says softly, and watches as something flickers in Regina’s eyes. “Like nothing in my life could change, and all I could do was watch it happen to me.”

Regina inhales quietly, a slow, deep breath, and then tucks her lips in. She stares at Emma keenly, her eyes moving slowly back and forth, waiting for something.

“I was just going numb. I wasn’t letting myself feel anything, anymore,” Emma’s smile wavers. “When I realized…when I realized I _could_ change things, it just kind of jump-started me.”

Regina nods, though Emma can see something in her hesitate, draw back. It makes Emma’s heart pickup faster. Swallowing thickly, she looks down to Regina’s hands, at the slender fingers carefully posed over her glass, at the short trimmed nails.

With a big breath, Emma slides her hand over Regina’s. She can’t look up from their hands, from the way Regina hesitantly let’s go of her glass to let Emma’s fingers slide over her knuckles and press into her palm.

“I want to start living my life again,” Emma says, and watches as her thumb glides over the boney slope of Regina’s thumb. “ _Actually_ live it, this time. And…to do that, I gotta start being brave and actually go after the things I want.”

Regina’s shoulders incline softly with the expanse of her lungs. Emma sees it out of the corner of her eye. When she looks up, she’s startled to find an almost frightened look in Regina’s eyes, not at all the gentle or loving expression she’d been desperately hoping for.

Blood thrums loudly in her ears, her heart clamoring in her chest loudly like pots and pans, brashly, her hope unsettled.

“And what’s that?” Regina whispers, her voice almost scratchy it’s so quiet.

Trembling with the might of all she wants, Emma grips onto Regina as if she might slip beneath ice if she lets go.

“I want you,” she releases tearfully, breathlessly. “I love you. I have loved you for a really, _really_ long time.”

Regina’s eyes well with tears. And then she slowly closes them. 

“Emma.” She whispers. Her voice carries the death-toll of a gentle, loving let-down.

Despair crawls through Emma’s ribs. Immediately she lets go, allows the ice to slip over her head. 

“I don’t expect you to feel the same,” Emma expels rapidly, like missiles. “I just – I wanted you to know. I didn’t have the courage to do it before, and I just – I wanted – I wanted – ” To her horror, her voice breaks with tears, and fills the hushed quiet between them with the ragged sound of her inhale, like a puncture wound. “God, sorry – I’m alright. I promise I won’t break down crying in your office.”

“Emma,” Regina stands, and with her eyes wet with tears, she reaches out for Emma’s hands. “Please – try to understand. I _can’t_ have you…”

“It’s fine,” Emma croaks, a horrible smile unfurling on her face as she teeters back a step. “Really. I get it. I – uh, I should go though.”

“Emma, _please_ ,” Regina staggers towards her with arms still reaching. “I just – I _can’t_ – you don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to explain. I completely understand – you don’t feel the way you did before.”

Regina is halfway around the desk when some minor mechanical error seems to occur. Her face goes abruptly blank, and she stops cold, her spine straightening into an exclamation mark as if struck by electricity. The wildness leaves her eyes, leaves in its absence a struck-dumb look.

“Wait what?” Regina breathes.

Emma stops too, the impulse to leave crinkling with confusion.

“What?” she asks and wipes a teary cheek.

“You said ‘the way I did before.’”

Emma blinks.

“Yeah.” She hiccups and wipes another tear from her cheek so that she can dumbly repeat herself. “You know. Before. How you felt before.”

A wild look is beginning to enter Regina’s eyes again, but this time there is a sharp edge of contention.

“Emma,” Regina begins lowly, and takes a deep breath to steady herself. “Are you telling me that you--?”

“I’m sorry I brought it up,” Emma tries to smile, afraid suddenly of tumbling into an argument when she is already so close to losing it. She teeters back a step towards the door. “I never wanted you to feel like there were any expectations from our time together. I just wanted you to be happy, and, you know, I hoped that I could add to it, but if you don’t feel the same –”

“Emma-“

“I mean, it makes sense –” with a weak laugh, Emma slinks back another step. “It’s been such a long time.”

“Emma Swan, don’t you dare take another step towards that door.” Regina commands, her voice like a whip.

Immediately, Emma freezes. Her joints bunch up, and her heart nearly stops.

With Emma frozen like a deer in headlights, Regina closes her eyes and takes a deep, calming breath, probably drawing on some old strategy she learned from Archie to alleviate homicidal impulses.

“Now,” Regina says, the strain of seeming calm audible in her voice. “Can you please confirm whether or not you have just traveled from the past.”

“Y-yeah. I did.”

Regina exhales slowly. “And you didn’t think to _start_ with that?”

“I—” Emma gapes. “No, I – I didn’t.”

“Do you _maybe_ recall that moment about six years ago when you made me _promise_ not to pursue you because you told me if I _did_ , you were going to disappear into some kind of black hole of existence?”

Emma gapes wordlessly.

“I…” she shakes her head. “I…”

“What, you just _forgot_?” Regina’s voice flares louder, looser as if she were unraveling.

“No, I –”

“I have waited for this moment for six years,” Regina stalks towards Emma angrily, a look of incredulous accusation so fiery on her face it has Emma backing up a little fearfully, becoming quickly cornered against the wall and the couch. “I can’t believe you. You almost didn’t tell me at all, you nearly just left!” she snarls, and steps into Emma’s space, pointing a finger to her chest. “How _long_ has it been since you came back?”

“A – about two hours ago?”

“Two _hour_ s ago?”

“Snow wanted me to babysit!” Emma cries, and slinks back against the wall as Regina steps fully into her space, close enough for the warmth of her body to radiate into the air between them, close enough to _feel_ the vibrating intensity of her skin. “And I wanted to break it off with Hook” she smiles weakly, “I thought the whole romantic speech would be a little dulled if I only broke up with him after going to see you.”

With that, a little of the anger seems to slide off Regina’s back.

Regina closes her eyes, and takes a big breath, probably counting to ten.

“Okay,” Regina sighs and puts a steadying hand against the couch, pressing a few fingers into the plush leather so hard that the tendons push up beneath skin. Emma glances down at the hand and all the stiffness there, all the fire and intensity that comes with waiting, only ever scarcely hoping. “Okay,” She sighs again, softly now, and tilts her head down slightly as if to lean her forehead against Emma’s, though she remains a few inches away.

Emma’s breath disappears halfway down her throat. It seems, despite all of her dumb, silly mistakes, she’s been given a chance after all. The rarest sort of chances.

Tentatively, Emma lifts a hand to Regina’s face, hovering there only an inch or so away until Regina leans into the touch, gently closing her eyes. Watching her, Emma feels that tense, fearful part inside of her slowly unwind, opening up again like a hand. 

“I’m sorry…” Emma whispers, and gently strokes a thumb along the top of Regina’s cheek. “I just wanted to do what I should have done before…you know,” she cracks a small smile. “I went into the past and nearly ruined everything.”

Regina makes a little noise in her throat. Turning her head, she presses a soft kiss against the heel of Emma’s hand.

“Okay,” Regina whispers, and puts another warm, full kiss against the center of Emma’s palm. Then, squeezing Emma’s fingers, Regina rests her cheek back against Emma’s hand. “Sorry, I just -- briefly lost my mind."

"That's okay." Emma whispers.

Regina swallows quietly, and holds Emma's palm a little closer.

"It's just..." Regina sighs and flutters her eyes up to pierce Emma through the heart with their endless depth. "It's just been so long. I stopped...I stopped hoping you'd ever come back to me."

Emma's heart trembles.

"Well," Emma's smile wavers tentatively. "I've come back.” 

A warm breath flutters against Emma's wrist as Regina turns her smile into Emma’s palm. A feeling so enormous inflates inside of Emma's chest it feels like a third lung. 

Firming her hand against the warm expanse of Regina’s cheek, Emma leans forward to press a tentative kiss against the corner of Regina’s mouth. There’s the familiar spark of magic between them, a loud, clear pop of connection and then the quiet, awed hush of their breathing.

Then, folding both hands around Emma’s jaw, Regina hauls their lips together once more.

Their kisses sway them both. Regina is warm and smooth against her mouth, her skin hot beneath the thin silky fabric of her shirt. She tastes like spiced apple cider and lipstick; she touches Emma like she can’t get enough of her, grabbing fistfuls of her shirt and hair to press her closer, pushing harder with each kiss, opening Emma’s mouth with her own to run her tongue along Emma’s.

Groaning, gripping Regina closer, Emma manages to loosen the back of Regina’s neatly pressed shirt from its neat tuck beneath an elaborate belt and sighs when her hand splays across the strong, firm line of Regina’s back. Smoothing both hands upward, Regina’s shirt crinkling up along with it, she bends to press warm, open-mouth kisses down Regina’s throat. 

As Regina tilts her head back and groans, the backs of her thighs hit the arm of the couch and throws off some inner point of balance inside of her.

Tipping unsteadily back, Regina instinctively digs into Emma’s arm and holds on tight to bring Emma down with her as she falls.

The air knocks out of them both as they land on the black couch, Regina first, and then Emma heavily on top of her. Her cheek sticks uncomfortably against leather as one of Regina’s knees jams into her stomach. Grunting in pain, Emma hauls herself up on her hands and knees so Regina can straighten out her leg, then because of the absolute despair on Regina’s face, she dissolves into laughter.

It spills out of her until everything inside of her chest feels watery and smooth and bright. She goes limp with it, crushing the soft surge of her joy against Regina’s warm neck, squeezing her tightly as she laughs.

Helpless beneath her, Regina’s chest quivers with her own laughter, small, breathless puffs of air that fit within her own.

When the laughter finally fades, a warm silence wells up between them. The air around them cools, the sunlight falling across the wall in streaks of red, almost violet.

A warm kiss presses softly against Emma’s forehead, crinkling her eyes closed with happiness. Turning her cheek, she puts a soft warm kiss against Regina’s neck and rests there, breathing against warm skin, lulled by the slow rise and fall of Regina’s chest.

“I thought you might be angry with me.” Emma says, eyes still closed.

Regina registers the question with a quiet hum and drags her fingers through Emma’s hair. “Why?”

“It’s sort of cowardly, don’t you think? I mean, I jumped into the past to hide from how miserable I was. Just because I was too afraid to change my life on my own.” Emma speaks quietly, sleepily, watching the shadows of the maple trees flicker across the wall. She draws in a deep breath, lets it go. “I only had the courage to change my life when I thought it was possible you’d feel the same way. You might not have felt this way the first time. If I had never gone back.”

A silence passes. A tree branch taps quietly against the window like a patient guest, waiting to be welcomed in.

“I could see what was happening to you,” Regina says softly, and slides her fingers through Emma’s hair again, slowly working through the curls. “These last few years, I have watched you slowly give away everything you could possibly give, just to be what your parents wanted. What you thought the town needed. What _I_ needed.”

Emma resists the urge to look up at Regina for fear of having those slow moving fingers pull away from her hair. She listens to the quiet beating of Regina’s heart instead, like the sound of something steady and powerful moving forward, like a horse plodding through a river.

“I understand why you felt so stuck. I understand it perfectly,” Regina whispers against her forehead, “It’s so easy to forget you have any power over your life when you have lived a life like ours. I know that feeling all too well.”

Heat prickles behind her eyes, and she closes them, lets the heat burn down the corner of her eye and away again.

“And for the last part,” Regina’s voice deepens with her smile, turning warm and happy. “I think I have fallen in love with you at least a thousand times over these last six years.”

Emma rears with surprise, nearly knocking Regina out cold with her head, but a firm hand presses down on Emma’s head and keeps her down.

“Careful with that head of yours,” Regina whispers, smiling, “It’s a blunt object, and I’m not done talking yet.”

Emma snorts against Regina’s chest, and feels a low, deep laugh vibrate against her skin.

“What I felt for you before…” Regina continues quietly, after a long silent moment, “Well, I don’t want to say it wasn’t love, because it was. But I didn’t know how to love _right_. Not at that point. I could not imagine what I would feel for you in the years that followed.”

More slowly, Emma lifts up onto her elbows so that she can peer down at Regina’s face. Regina trails her fingers down Emma’s cheek, smiling beautifully.

“The last few years I really got to know you. Really know you,” Regina thumbs the corner of Emma’s smile, looking briefly down at her lips. “When we were together, in the past, I got to know your kindness, but I had forgotten your anger. Your fear of failing others, your stubbornness, your seemingly unending empathy. Your incredibly frustrating ability to forgive. Your inability to stand down when you know someone is in danger,” Regina brushes the tips of her fingers along Emma’s mouth, and sighs, “And the fact that some of your most beautiful smiles sometimes looks like you’re frowning.”

Emma trembles. She feels like a room filling slowly with water, welling to the top, the pressure inside about to burst.

Regina leans up to brush her lips with Emma’s in a soft, lingering kiss, though it feels almost friendly, she whispers the words that break her.

“You’ve become my best friend these last six years, and I love you more than ever.”

A sharp, shudder crawls down Emma’s spine, and feeling the urge to cry, she turns to muffle the sound against Regina’s collar. There, little peeps and squeaky gasps shudder out of her. Regina surrounds Emma with her arms, holding her close.

Against Emma’s ear, she feels Regina’s smile. “And for the record, I’m glad you went back to the past.”

Laughing tearfully, brightly, she asks, “Why?”

“Because” Regina purrs, and slides her fingers through her hair. “It gave me some _very_ good memories to hold onto while you were with those other men.” She scoffs, “To think, I thought I hated _August_. Then Neal came along, and I thought no _, this_ is worse. And then _Hook_ came into the picture, and I really thought I’d kill him. I really can’t believe I didn’t.”

Emma smiles weakly. “You know, in my timeline, you stayed with Robin. You were happy with him.”

Regina makes a low indistinct sound. “I couldn’t have been _that_ happy.” She glances down at Emma, her mouth hiking up in a smirk. “I know what good sex feels like, even in a universe where _we_ never had sex.”

Emma feels a blush heat up on her cheeks which earns her another laugh, vibrating deep and lovely between their bodies.

The air settles. For a while, they lay there in the quiet, resting against one another, listening to the wind whistle through the trees outside. Regina smooths her hand up and down Emma’s neck, rubbing a thumb occasionally around a small knotted vertebrae. 

A sleepy contentment settles over them. Emma shifts, and resettles her cheek.

“We should probably go grocery shopping.” Emma says, softly.

“Mhm.” Regina's hands slide beneath Emma's shirt to the warm ridge of her spine. "I suppose we should."

Emma's skin tingles with other possibilities. "Or, we can just order take out."

"No, that's all Henry's been having with his new best friend."

Emma squints at the sardonic cant of Regina's mouth. It was always hard to keep up with the constant influx of Henry's friends, but never more difficult than the balancing act on the ever shifting tensions between these friend groups and Regina. Allegiances were made. Bonds broken. Grudges remained.

"Which one, again?"

Regina sighs. "Aleesa."

"Aleesa? What happened to Grace?"

"They're still friends," Regina drags her fingers lightly up Emma's spine, "But Aleesa is in his science class, and they're nearly inseparable now."

Regina is the one that remembers all the names and knows all the stories. She keeps track of all the love and heartbreaks in her son's life with the same unnerving intensity of a bright red thread that connects together conspiracies. 

"What do you think she's gonna do?" Emma smiles.

"Nothing _treacherous_ , I suppose." Regina sighs to the ceiling.

Emma looks down at Regina and smiles. The color is still high in Regina's cheeks and her eyes are so bright and warm, it makes Emma’s heart forget its rhythm against her ribs. 

"What?" Regina asks with a faint smile.

"Nothing," Emma puts a palm to her cheek and strokes her gently along the cheekbone. "You're just pretty."

Regina nearly purrs at that. Then, her hands are sweeping up to Emma's face and drawing her down for one more kiss. Then another, and another, and another, until Emma is sighing into Regina's open mouth, feeling her teeth drag along her bottom lip. Groaning softly, Regina presses up against Emma's hips in a way that makes her eyes roll back into her head. 

“You know, we could just order pizza,” Emma speaks breathlessly against Regina’s mouth. “For tonight, I mean.”

“You’re not getting out of going to the store with me,” Regina smiles against her ear, and cards her fingers through Emma’s hair again. “You already said you would.”

So they go to the store.

There is something about happiness that can make even a dull errand feel good. She had forgotten that small things could make a person happy. Things like early mornings or a hot cup of apple cider. Like searching for the best tomato in the fresh aisle section of the grocery store. She’d forgotten.

For so long, she’d felt nothing. She had furnished a big, empty house with Hook without a single feeling at all. She had skimmed through second hand furniture stores and _Home_ _Decor_ magazines with only a dull resolve to complete a chore, to buy things that made a house full; she bought couches and glass tables and oak chiffoniers until each room was filled and there was nothing else to buy, until the chore finished. It had felt so easy to swallow down her bitterness and her grief. Life could be so much worse than simply disappointing.

But at the age of thirty four Emma is ready to live her life again. Her heart is coming back to her, coming back to life, all bruised and battered and strong.

In the evening, when the light has gone blue from the vanished sun, Emma stands beside Regina like she does every Friday. As if nothing has changed. But occasionally, as Regina passes behind her to check on the pot simmering on the stove, she puts a hand on Emma’s lower back and keep it there like an anchor: a place for her to rest and recover.

Henry comes in around 6pm, somehow taller than Emma remembers. He is tall enough to make Regina go on her tippy toes just to rest her chin on his shoulder when they hug. He is sixteen and happy as ever, just as bright-eyed as he has always been at the chance to spend an evening with his moms’ in the kitchen.

Dinner is a warm, loud affair. Henry talks about his day with the skill of a storyteller, building anticipation around each story until he has both Emma and Regina transfixed over their wine glasses, waiting for the next line, the next turn. Regina’s hand slides onto Emma’s leg halfway through dinner, where it stays solidly, stroking softly with a thumb along Emma’s inner thigh. Around that time, Emma’s head goes hazy with the wine and the thought of where the evening might go, putting in her head a dream-like fantasy that makes her skin go warm and hazy.

By the time they finish clearing all the dishes, the light is draining out of the rooms in Regina’s house like a wave that has reached its further point and is now slowly drawing back, going back where it came from.

Henry decides to flip through the channels for something to watch, and after a few minutes of searching he clicks on _When Harry Met Sally_ , only thirty minutes in, because Regina makes a quiet pleading sound when he hesitates over it.

The sound of the movie washes over them, the quiet, early days of autumn in New York flickering through their quiet dark room. Halfway through, Regina settles her cheek against Emma’s shoulder and tucks her hand beneath Emma’s warm sweater, splaying her fingers out across her stomach.

Regina makes a small attempt to hide her tears as the movie progresses, but by the time Sally and Harry have finally kissed, there are silent tears streaming down her face. There are the lonesome days apart, the Christmas tree that is dragged up a frigid case of stairs alone, and the silent, unspoken absence of the other that seems to fills the screen with a silent kind of yearning. By the time Harry is running through the cold, frozen streets of New York, Regina is openly sobbing, only slightly muffling the sounds of her crying into Emma's knitted crew-neck sweater. 

When the final notes of the movie play out, the room fills with a quiet, warm hush. Without a word, Emma slides her arm from the couch to curve around Regina’s back, pulling her closer until she can feel the faint watery warmth of tears dotting on her skin instead of her sweater.

“Well," Henry says after the movie has finished its long roll of credits, and Regina's breathing has calmed. "It’s late."

Regina hums quietly, now nestled warmly against Emma’s side. Her hand rubs small soothing circular motions up and down Emma’s stomach, occasionally scratching down the curve of her ribs with the very tips of her fingertips. At last, the screen flickers to a grey black, and he clicks it off, returning the room to its darkness. Only a porch light outside remains on, leaving a soft, hazy light in the far distance.

“Boy, I’m beat.” Henry says after a while when no one stirs, and yawns hugely, overdoing it.

“Okay, dear,” Regina smiles, lazy now with wine and good food (and a good cry).

She extends her arms outward in a way that forces Henry to nearly bend in half in order to hug her goodnight, but he indulges his Mom readily, in every hug, in such a way that no other teenager boy ever would.

“Goodnight, darling,” Regina whispers against his ear, and gives Henry a good tender squeeze.

Henry leans his cheek against his Mom’s neck and looks at Emma with bright warm eyes. _You remember_ , his eyes seem to say, and though the lie remains, a thread of truth has traced her here, into the future, because in another life Emma had forgotten what it felt like to occupy her life the way she is now. The last six years feel clearer in Emma’s mind now, less muddled with loss and confusion. She can now track through the years of her life with some clarity rather than the stair-well of mystifying loss she’d had been accustomed to viewing it as. There was the year the curse broke; the year she nearly lost Henry then lost everyone else instead; the year she lost Neal, the year she lost her chance; lost her mind; lost her resolve. Now, her life adds the years with different steps. It feels somehow brighter, clearer, though it has barely changed. Beaming, Emma’s eyes shine their answer: _yes I remember. I remember._

With Henry gone, Regina withdraws from Emma a little shyly. She relapses into the friendly habit of showing Emma to the guest room, the one she normally sleeps in. Half her clothes are already folded in the drawers, left behind from other visits. Her running shoes are in the corner. That blue leather jacket she’d lost is probably hanging up in the closest.

Emma hesitates at the doorway, her hand still on the handle.

Regina hesitates, too.

“I just… I don’t want you to think I have any expectations. Just because I’ve been waiting for six years doesn’t mean I can’t wait a little longer,” Regina emits a little laugh and looks down at her hands. Wringing her fingers together, she turns a silver ring a quarter inch back and forth along her right hand. “I know this is still new, and I wouldn’t want to do anything that you weren’t ready for.”

Emma’s heart warms through all of its tough spots. Six years have changed them both, and though it has not always been for the better, there is an understanding between them that has grown all the stronger because of it. It pulses between their hearts, as indestructible as iron. Six years, and all along there had been all of this love and understanding waiting for her. Waiting for her to be ready.

When Emma crosses the space between them, she conveys in the trembling hands that frame Regina’s face, in the halting kisses, in every soft, frantic touch, the feeling in her heart. That finally, she is _ready._ Regina makes a low, desperate sound in the back of her throat and leans up into their kiss, wringing her fingers into Emma's hair. Stumbling back, they haltingly make their way towards Regina's bedroom, stopping only occasionally to laugh when a hip is jammed uncomfortably into the corner of a desk or an elbow knocks against a lamp. They laugh and kiss and sigh, until at last Emma pulls Regina to her and lays them both back onto the bed. 

Later, finally too exhausted to continue, their skin hot with sweat and still buzzing with a high still pooling out its finest points, Regina leans her head against Emma’s chest and sighs.

“I thought I messed up somewhere,” Regina whispers into the quiet hush of the bedroom. Though her eyes are closed, her face peaceful, there is a thread of tears in her voice. “I thought I changed your path to me.”

Emma shakes her head and closes her eyes, resting a cheek against the curve of Regina’s forehead.

“I was always coming here.” She whispers, smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! Thank you so much for everyone who read and kudos-ed and especially to those who reviewed. You are the reason writers continue to write
> 
> I usually don't post notes because I generally want my readers to come away from a story feeling whatever you are feeling without it being shaped by my own little thoughts and feelings. But since Emma Swan is hugely important to me, and always will be important to me, I felt the need to say this.
> 
> I started writing fic for this fandom when I was eighteen and I am twenty five now. Seven years have passed, and I've changed quite a bit myself. It hasn't all been easy and it hasn't all been good. While I think we can all agree that the way A&E wrote Emma shows an utter lack of understanding to her character, and that the show churned out consistently shallow and disingenuous story lines, I will say that though Emma gradually changed over the seasons, I never lost my attachment to her. I felt in Emma what I have felt in myself frequently over the last few years: a deep weariness, and a numbness towards change. 
> 
> If you've reached the end of this story and still think Emma should be the person she used to be in season one, I can assure you that you've missed my point. I love that Emma learned how to open herself up to love. But she never had the support or model for a healthy love, and for that reason she was bound to exhaust herself trying to keep what she had. With a little love and some healthy boundaries, I believe she is fully capable of remembering all the good things in her life. And fighting for them.
> 
> And so I’ll leave you with that. Let me know what you thought ❤️


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